


Heal

by intern_at_german_chapterhouse



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, F/M, Family, Nephilim, Saving People Hunting Things, The Family Business, The Winchester Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-02-07 06:02:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12834834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intern_at_german_chapterhouse/pseuds/intern_at_german_chapterhouse
Summary: Sam, Dean and Castiel return to the bunker, trying to get back to their lifes after they are all reunited. But life in the bunker gets turned upside down when a new family member arrives. AU after 12x02. Rated Mature for language and later chapters.





	1. Hey Jude

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, so this is my very first fanfic, and it's the first story I wrote in English. I'm awfully sorry for any stupid grammar mistakes, if you find some let me know:)  
> A friend made me publish this story, and I should actually be studying right now, and practically all the time, so I'll probably upload the chapters I already finished and then we'll see.  
> I do not own the show Supernatural or its characters or they would all be happy and have everything they want. I also don't own the songs that give the chapters their names.  
> I've posted this Fanfic on fanfiction.com already.  
> I hope you guys enjoy this story, which is mostly about family but also about the global consequences of what our boys do in the US. Okay, let's go.

" _Hey, Jude, don't make it bad_ "  
I slam the oven door shut and almost shout the next line.  
" _Take a sad song, and make it better_ "  
God, I love that song. Wait, if I say something like that, should I use _God_ or rather _Chuck_? Why didn't I ask him? Typically me: meets God and, instead of asking the real important questions, asks about some guy I've never met, never wanted to meet, but have been hating my whole damn life.  
Maybe it was his sister though. Amara really really freaked me out.  
Well, that isn't important anymore. Right now, it's all about me, the Beatles and the pie in the oven.  
" _Na na nanananananana_ " I'm pretty sure I sang a few Na's too much but I don't care. I'm on my own, the music is so loud even I can't hear me singing, the smell of baked goods is filling the air and, well, I'm alone in the bunker anyway.  
At least that's what I thought.  
I'm spinning around in the kitchen, singing, kinda dancing, having more fun than I had since...  
And then, I turn around, and look right into the barrel of a gun. And a beautiful one.  
The gun lies in a man's hand. The guy is at least ten centimetres taller than me and stares at me with a look that would probably kill me if looks were able to do so.  
"Who are you?" It's not really a question, more of an order.  
"I-" I start to say and then stop. Not because I don't know how I'm gonna say what I have to say, I have been thinking about that for my whole freaking life, I know exactly what I want to say. Not because of the gun pointed at me, I couldn't care less about that. No, I stop because the guy standing behind Gun-Guy is bleeding.  
Like, Red-Niagara-Falls-On-His-Face-Bleeding.  
"Holy shit!" Flinching because of that- for me rather innocent- curse, I try to get to the even taller guy with the long hair, but the slightly smaller but still very intimidating man with the freaking gun in his hands tells me to stop.  
"Who are you?" He almost hisses at me.  
"Let me help your brother, okay? Please?!" I try Puppy-Eyes and it looks like they almost work. Almost.  
"You know us? Why are you here?" He gestures around with that stupid beautiful gun in his hand and if he was anyone other than Dean Winchester, I would probably be scared of him accidentally shooting me.  
"Please. He's hurting and I can help him. Just, please?" He looks really confused but seems to decide that I don't pose a great threat to him and his brother, because even if Sam is hurt, they are still the Winchesters and I know who they are, so I must know what they're capable of no matter how badly they might be bleeding.  
"Okay, I'm just gonna get some stuff to take care of that wound, out of my backpack over there", I gesture to the small black bag leaning against the fridge, "and then I'll stitch up that cut on your face", I look from Dean to Sam. Wow, they look a lot alike if you look past the obvious differences. And that nose sitting right under Dean's green eyes reminds me of-" and then we can talk, okay? I'm not going to hurt anyone. I really just wanna help." They nod. I nod. Great.  
Two steps over to the fridge. Ten seconds to pull the first aid kit out. Five steps to stand in front of Sam. Fifteen seconds to put on the blue gloves I stole in a hospital.  
" _Nananana, Hey Jude!_ " The Beatles fade away and suddenly it is really quiet in the Bunker.  
Andy Grammer's _Keep Your Head Up_ is almost over, being replaced by _Juke Box Hero_ , when I take out the bottle of disinfectant again and spray some on the awful cut right above Sam's right eye that I just stitched up without him even flinching once. I put the bottle on the table next to the gauze and the needle. The gloves I just throw right next to the stuff, everything's full of blood but at least Sam's face isn't anymore.  
"I'll clean this and then-"  
Dean interrupts me. "The hell you are! First, you'll tell us who you are, how you got here and what you want!"  
I sigh. The gun still pointed at me doesn't scare me at all. I've had too many guns pointed at me, too many triggers pulled that fired a shot in my direction, I'm used to it. So I just sigh again.  
"What I want? Talk. First. Then? We'll see. How I got here? Well, I'm just that good of a hunter. Who I am?"  
I pause.  
This is it.  
The point of no return.  
Right now, I could leave. Just get my stuff and go, forget this ever happened.  
Or I could say one sentence, that would completely turn my life around.  
One sentence that would probably get me killed in the end.  
I inhale, try to say it, fail and exhale loudly.  
I swallow dryly and look at them. They both look a little confused, a lot angry and mildly concerned.  
Sighing again I close my eyes and open them while I inhale deeply again.  
This is it.  
"I am-"  
There's black smoke.  
Where the hell did that demon come from? This is one of the most powerfully warded places on the face of the earth!  
But the air doesn't smell like sulphur, I quickly check.  
It smells like burnt pie.  
"Crap!"  
I turn around and open the oven and pull out the grid, burning my fingers. I grab the towel hanging next to the oven and pull the damn pie I completely forgot about out of it's own little hell and toss it on the stove.  
"Dammit! Fuck!" I turn off the heat and turn back around to face the Winchesters who now stare at me with the exact same look of surprise and weirded-outness in both their eyes.  
"Sorry, eh, I thought I'd make you some pie, but, uhm... You guys came home a lot earlier than I thought you would... Uhm..."  
They look even more confused if that's possible. I kind of smile at them and want to kick myself in the face for the stupid expression I probably just showed them.  
"Well... eh... I bought some pie, too. I mean, it's not as good as self-made pie, but it's pie nonetheless, right? So, eh, it's in the fridge and I just thought we could eat some pie and drink coffee or tea or, well, beer, if you prefer that, and just talk and I really thought you'd come home tomorrow or the day after, because the newspaper article I found was from last week and I thought when you followed that lead, then it would take you at least ten days so I thought... Maybe I thought a little too much. Eh... Sorry?"  
Sometime during my monologue, Dean has lowered his gun. Right. No one that talks so much crap could be someone who is able to hurt the Winchesters.  
I clear my throat and just keep going, because, hell, I screwed it up already so fuck it, right?  
"But then again, you guys have a lot of practise, right. You even saved the world, some say. Well, I mean a lot of people say that you both have died before, so… I don't know. Did you? Die, I mean? Doesn't matter sorry, I'm not asking the questions, you are, right? Wait, you asked me something, right? Who I am?"  
Dean slowly nods. He looks kinda shocked. Wow. I really screwed it all up.  
What do I even care?  
I hate the man, right?  
Hated him every day of my life. I don't have to not screw anything up, because there isn't anything to screw up, because there just isn't anything.  
"Okay, wait. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here. Sorry. I shouldn't have just come in here and bake pie and stitch you up and l talk to you and probably scare you, you know what? I'm just gonna grab my stuff and leave, alright? Don't mind me, I'm leaving. Sorry for everything, Sam I wish you a fast recovery, maybe you guys can save some of the pie I made, or you could just eat the one in the fridge, there's also new beer over there and I bought some vegetables and fruits, they're in the fridge as well, so, have a nice day, eh, life, eh, bye."  
Before I can grab my bag, Dean holds me back by just wrapping his whole freaking hand around my upper arm. Chuck, these guys are tall.  
"Who are you?"  
Inhale.  
Exhale.  
Do I tell them?  
Inhale.  
He lets go of my arm.  
I should.  
Exhale.  
I will.  
Inhale.  
"I think, well I know, I'm pretty sure, that, eh..."  
I think I'm gonna chicken out again.  
I'll just tell them, right? I can leave after telling them.  
No prob.  
I'll just tell them.  
"I'mprettyverysurethatI'myourdaughter."


	2. Little Do You Know

Dean's face falls to the floor. "Wha- What?"

Seriously? Is he fucking kidding me? I didn't want it to, but the anger that has lived in my guts since the day I found out that my father was alive heats up and runs like fire through my veins, it feels like I'm boiling with rage.

"Yeah. You know. You screw my mother, nine months later I pop out, you don't want anything to do with it, send some stupid money and forget about me."

He looks so hurt. I guess the words came out a lot angrier and harder than I ever intended them to.

"You know what?" I ask, without waiting for an answer. "This was all a mistake. You didn't want a baby then so I guess you don't want a teenager now. Sorry. Just... Just forget this ever happened. Just, forget me!" Again. Just forget me _again_.  
I'm tired. I don't know what I was thinking, coming here, just marching into their home and baking fucking pie. I shouldn't have come.

"Just... Goodbye." Maybe they didn't hear what I just said because I'm pretty sure that those two words didn't come out as much more than as a puff of breath.  
"Bye." I try again and grab my stuff. The backpack on the kitchen table, my cell, still connected to the amazing sound system I never would have thought I'd find in a decades old bunker, and my brown leather jacket that I hung over a chair when I first got into the kitchen.  
Dean still looks like a truck hit him and Sam just seems completely dumb struck too.

Picking up my pace I walk through the hallway, my steps echoing through the big bunker. In my head I keep screaming, yelling at myself, because now I have to call a cab and go to the nearest airport which is gonna cost a fortune and my flight isn't gonna be cheap either and then I'll have to stay on a plane for ten hours till we get back to Germany and I HATE planes. I cross some kind of entrance hall with a big opening to a library I would have loved to spend some rainy days in. Opposite of the library is a staircase leading up to the huge steel door, I climb it up, tears starting to fill my eyes. That's why I don't see the tall, not as tall as Sam of course or even as Dean but tall nonetheless, trench coat wearing guy that comes down the stairs.

Lucky for me I'm only a few steps higher than the ground because after just one look at him I stumble to the bottom of the stairs.  
" _You_?!" My scream echoes through the halls, jumping off the book shelves and somehow must have found its way to the kitchen because just as I and trench coat guy stand in the entrance staring at each other, him confused and a little sheepishly and me probably just angrily, Sam and Dean come running in.

"Cass?" Dean sounds confused, his emotions apparently all over the place.  
"What happened?" Sam is a little more in control but I can see he's also disturbed by what happened in the last few minutes.  
"You know that guy? Seriously?" I point at trench coat guy and look at the man who is my father, willing him to explain, how he can work with one of _them_.  
"Eh... Yeah?" Dean asks apologetically.  
"You know, he's an angel, right?" I can't believe how calm they are. There's a fucking angel in their fucking home and they are completely cool about it! And it's not just any angel, either, it's-  
"Castiel", trench coat guy introduces himself, "Angel of the Lord."  
"More like Dick with Wings!" I don't care about being rude to him and that it might not be wise to talk to an angel that way. Castiel is an ass. An ass that tried to kill a five year old girl. I don't care if I hurt his feelings. Hell, he probably doesn't even have feelings. And, anyways, he promised not to kill me if I didn't...

"Wait, why are you here? I didn't do it! I didn't do anything wrong, you don't get to kill me! Not if I haven't done anything bad!"  
If it's even possible, Dean and Sam look even more confused.  
"I am not here to harm you in any way, Amelie. In fact, I was not aware of your presence in the bunker until I ran into you."

Castiel is the first person in America that pronounced my name correctly. Well, he isn't an American, really. Or a person.  
"Amelie?" Case proven. Neither Sam nor Dean pronounced it right.

"Cass, you know her?" Dean seriously reaches levels of confusion I didn't think were possible for a - well, mostly- sane person to reach.  
"Yeah. He does. In fact, we go way back. Summer of '04, right? A little after my fifth birthday, I think it was. Only, you were wearing another meat suit, right? A woman. Wow." I look him up and down. "This one looks kinda like her. What about the poor fellow in there? Ever thought about him? God. I HATE angels!"

This is all too much. Just five minutes ago I was happy, dancing around to The Beatles and now all the rage that has been building up in me since I was five is coming out as shouting and yelling and being a dick to a dick with wings.

"Alright, calm down everybody. No one's going to kill anyone, let's just sit down and talk. Okay?" Sam tries to cool off the emotions flying around.  
Dean takes a deep breath as I do the same and slowly, cautiously we all walk over to the tables in the library. I try to keep my eyes on the angel because after all he's probably the most dangerous to me at the moment.

We sit down, the three of them at one side of the long table and me opposite of them, everybody watching each other, the emotions that have been on the loose earlier slightly concealed behind well trained poker faces, some better kept than others.

"Okay," Sam, as the maybe most objective person in the room at the moment, says, "let's do this again. I'm Sam, these are Dean and Cass." He points at the men sitting to his right. I nod, trying to stay calm and not just start yelling again. "And you are?"

"Amelie", my voice is more of a whisper than really a voice. "Amelie MÃ¼ller", I repeat. "You can call me Amy if you want to."

"Amelie MÃ¼ller... Is that German?" This is the first time Dean says something that doesn't sound as if it's involving a circumstance that makes him wanna kill himself or everyone around him since I've come to the bunker.

"Kinda. I mean, I grew up in Germany, but the name... I don't know..." I just shrug. It doesn't really matter anyway.

"Germany." God, how can someone as big and intimidating as Dean sound so hurt? I feel almost sorry for him right now. Almost.  
I nod.

"And, how do you know Cass?" I still don't take my eyes completely off of Castiel so I just kinda look over to Sam who sits on Dean's other side.  
"Well", I shrug, "I don't really _know_ him, he just tried to kill me when I was five."

Castiel doesn't seem to be affected by what I just said. Sam and Dean on the other hand very much are. And only when he sees them looking at him confused and a little angry he reacts.

"I did not know that she was your daughter. I only knew that she is related to you but how close she is to you I could not have known."

"Yeah." Dean shakes his head giving the word the exact opposite meaning. "And why the fuck did you try to kill a five year old?"

The angel shrugs as if it's not a big deal but to him it probably isn't. Killing kindergarten aged kids is most likely a normal Thursday afternoon for heaven's dicks. "I was doing as I was told to," he says, still without anything even remotely like feelings.

"But... Why? You knew why you were gonna kill a kid, right? They at least told you what you were killing a freaking five year old for?"

Everyone's silent for a little while. Sam and Dean turn their eyes from Castiel to me.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm not gonna tell you. Last time I did, three angels showed up and I had a fucking blade to my throat!"

Now everyone's looking at Castiel again, while the angels just stares at me.

"She was not supposed to live. But when she showed her friend, we picked up an abnormality of waves in the atmosphere that made us look into-" I interrupt the angel.

"Oh, God, please. Not the Novel version." Sam and Dean turn their heads back to me in the exact same second as if they were one person. I know what that's like. That's just what happens when you hunt with someone you know, when you have to coordinate your every step, every movement, every muscle twitch, because other ways you're gonna get killed. End of story.

"Justâ€¦" I sigh. I'm so tired, which really isn't like me, but right now I'm so exhausted, I could probably sleep a whole day.

"Can I show them? Or will another squad of heavenly ass holes turn up and kill all of us?"

"No. It should be safe."

I raise my eyebrows. "Okay then. Just, please, don't freak out okay?" The two brothers sitting across from me just look confused again.  
I sigh again and close my eyes.

When I open them again, they breathe in audibly.

What I am seeing has changed. I can still make out their silhouettes, but more prominently, their souls.  
Castiel's, huge and bright and, well, angelic.  
Dean's, clear but kind of cracked, a little too dim to be really healthy, but I can make out the heavenly Grace in his soul too.  
And Sam's. So bright, shining blue, but it's tainted as if some drops of a dark colour got dumped in a big bucket of glitter.

"Are you... " Dean stops. I'm pretty sure I know what he's going to ask.  
"Are you an angel?"

Yup, knew it.


	3. Been A Long Day

"Ehm... No. I..." I stop talking and close my eyes. When I open them again my sight is back to normal. Well, human normal instead of angel normal. Judging by their expressions, which settle back to a little less confused, my eyes also went back from the angelic bright blue that literally shines to normal gray eyes.  
I smile a little awkwardly. Everyone's eyes are still fixed on me.

Castiel nods and says "I see that you are much more in control than the last time I saw you."  
Because I don't know, what else to say, I just nod back and say "Well, I do have a little practice after all", hoping that he can hear the sarcasm in my voice.  
He nods again. Apparently, he can't.  
The brothers are quiet.

"Anybody got any questions?" No idea if I shouldn't have just given them a little time to think or process anything.  
"Why do your freaking eyes glow like that?" Dean still sounds shocked. Maybe all of this is even harder on him than it is on me. Apparently, I know a lot more about him than he does about me.

"Do they know?" Castiel seems surprised that I talk directly to him without screaming or sounding sarcastic.  
"I do not believe they do."  
"And you never told them?"  
He just kinda shrugs and tilts his head a little. The gesture seems as if he's doing it fairly often.

With a little raise of my eyebrows, which I perfected in front of a mirror years ago and is usually able to make people feel really uncomfortable about what they just said, I say: "Well, what your friend here seems to have forgotten to mention to you guys is that one of your ancestors ages ago slept with an angel and they had a child, a Nephilim. You know about these?"  
They nod.  
"Okay, so I guess you know that the angels got a strict NO-FUCKING-WITH-APES-RULE that very much includes the NO-HALF-APE-CHILDREN-ALLOWED-RULE, right? Well, somehow your half-angelic ancestor survived long enough to have a kid him- or herself. The angels didn't care much since it wasn't a strong angel that had a child, so the child was not exactly powerful either, then they probably lost track after at least a few generations even though the people in your family tree tend to die rather young."  
"Yeah," Dean's voice is filled with sarcasm. "We've noticed."  
"Well, that's because no part human and part angel is supposed to live. And since the angelic Grace doesn't really water down the more it's mixed with human blood, it apparently just changes, you've got quite some in you, too."  
The brothers look at each other, surprised yet again by something I brought into their home. Wow. They really must hate me by now.

"And, eh, when you, Dean, found a girl, eh, woman, who also had a Nephilim in her family, and both your Graces were mixed, ehm, your child, AKA, me, got a lot more mojo than angels would like a human being to have. So when I first really used my powers, when I was five, they sensed it and came to end me."  
Wow. Do they ever not look surprised?

"So..." Dean starts but doesn't end his sentence. He looks to Sam and then to the angel sitting next to him as if he was looking for guidance. "So, Allison had angelic grace, too?"  
I'm kind of surprised. He didn't know that I'm his daughter, but he knows who my mother is?  
"You remember her?" After everything I've heard about Dean Winchester, I really wouldn't have thought that he could even remember the names of any of the women he just slept with last week.  
"You got her hair." He just shrugs. Sam looks surprised about what his brother just said too.  
"I do?"  
"Yeah, but you knew that, didn't you?" He asks surprised.  
"Eh... No. I have no clue, what my mother looks like."  
Now he looks shocked. "But, who did you grow up with?"

I remember what someone in an online chat room once wrote about the character Dean Winchester in Carver Edlund's books "Supernatural", that he never had a real childhood because of what happened to his mother. I didn't read any of the books because knowing that they were about my family and very true too made it hard to even read the first chapter of the first book in which Mary Winchester died. I didn't want to invade my father's privacy that way. Still don't. But I did look at some readers' theories about the Winchesters. For example, that Dean hated the circumstances that took his childhood years, even blamed his father, and that he had often saved kids from having to go through that themselves.  
So, maybe he is concerned about me not having parents growing up. Or he's just worried that a chick he slept with died. Death by sex is apparently the most common cause of death of women that encountered the Winchesters.

"Well, after you didn't care about me and just send some stupid money, my grandparents apparently told my mother to get rid of me, which she didn't want to do, so she simply ditched me at an orphanage." Before he can say anything, which he definitely tries to, I pull a letter out of my jacket's pocket and show it to all of them. "She left this with me, tryin' to explain... Everything, I guess." I sigh and feel my brows raising. "It says in here, that she wanted me as far away from your father and what he is doing as possible which I didn't really understand until I heard about the famous Winchester brothers, best hunters in the US. So she dropped me off at an orphanage run by nuns."  
Dean swallows and looks down on the desk.  
"Wait," Sam asks, his head turned to his brother, "you told her?"  
A little nod from Dean and a small cough from Sam.  
I bite my lip. Not as hard as usual, I don't taste blood. Yet. But still, it hurts. Good.

"I didn't." Dean's voice sounds so goddamn small and tiny so not like the big scruffy man sitting in front of me. When he sees how everyone looks at him he says "I didn't send money. I didn't even know about you, I..." His voice trails off.  
"Well, my mother wrote that she sent you a letter and the only response was the transfer of some money to a bank account she started for me, so if it wasn't you..."  
I shrug. I don't know what else to say. Maybe he's lying. Maybe he really doesn't know. Right now I don't care. I'm so so incredibly tired. This really isn't like me.  
"Dean." Sam sounds scared. "Maybe... Maybe he-"  
Dean cuts him off. "No. No, Dad wouldn't... He would never..."  
Castiel cocks his head and watches the brothers. I do the same.  
"Dean, let's just look into the journal, okay?"  
But Dean doesn't react. He keeps his eyes locked to the table.  
Sam gets up and the three of us just sit there, waiting. We're all used to sitting around and waiting, it's completely normal on a hunt and I feel more and more like I'm on a hunt right now. I'm tensed, just like when I'm out on a job, adrenaline rushing through my veins instead of blood, every sense on edge.  
When Sam comes back he drops a leather bound journal on the table. I've seen it being mentioned in a few blogs online.

He seems uncomfortable as he turns to Dean, "So, eh, you and Allison, when were you together?"  
"June 1998," I say.  
Sam looks at me, his eyebrows raised.  
I shrug, "I was born April 1999 so..."  
Dean shakes his head. "No. July. You and dad were away, I was alone for a while."  
Wow. He really does remember my mother.  
Opening the journal, Sam exhales loudly and turns a few pages.  
"Here. _August 1998. Back from Orlando with Sammy. Dean gave me some shuck and jive about how he blazed through five states while we were gone, but_ ," Sam stops for a second, then keeps reading, " _the Impala's odometer has barely budged. I'm guessing a girl is involved_."

No one says anything for almost a minute.

Sam clears his throat. "When did your mother send the letter, do you know that?"  
I don't.  
"Well, the money arrived at my account on the tenth of November. So, shortly before that, I guess."  
Sam turns a page.  
He looks at Dean as if he's about to hit him and doesn't want to.  
" _Second of November. Mary has been dead for fifteen years. I feel like I'm getting closer_. Didn't he... Didn't he get that clue right around the fifteen years anniversary?"  
Dean still hasn't looked up from the table. Now a single tear drops from his cheek and lands on the wood, with a splash that sounds way too loud and makes me flinch.  
"He knew. He knew and he didn't tell me. He..." Dean's voice dies and once again we all sit there.

I've heard of John Winchester. Fans of the Supernatural books seem to hate him. He lost his wife and the only thing he could think of doing was dragging his two sons all across the country hunting stuff that wanted to kill them. Most of the fans also seem to be sure that John Winchester hit his children. Great father. Great childhood. I should know.  
And apparently, he knew his son had a kid and didn't tell him. Wow. And I thought my father sucked for not giving a crap about me.

"Give me the journal."  
"Dean..."  
"Sam. Give it."  
Sam slides the book over to his brother. Dean opens it, goes through a few pages. I see sigils and drawings and stuff written all over the torn pages that look like several people have sat in front of the book going through it and looking for answers.  
He stops cold at the far back of the book. Sucks in a bit of air.  
"Oh, Chuck." Okay, apparently that's what one's supposed to say. Gotta remember it.  
Dean points to something written down in the same handwriting as the rest of the book, but even from the other side of the table, I can see that the hand writing this must have been shaking.

" _I've prevented him from being a father_." Dean's voice breaks. "Fuck," he mumbles. "Fuck."  
Again we just sit there in silence. The angel seems to want to reach out to the man sitting next to him, but he doesn't. Sam also moves his hand in Dean's direction but stops.

"Maybe," Sam says, "maybe we should just go to sleep. It's late. We were on a hunt, haven't really slept in days, we need some rest. And, eh, Amy, don't take this the wrong way but you look like some sleep would do you a lot of good, too."  
I nod. "I, eh, I already put my stuff into one of the rooms that looked like no one was sleeping in them. I hope that was okay?"  
"Yeah. Yeah, sure." After a quick look at Dean Sam continues, "So, let's go get a good night's sleep and talk in the morning, okay? Maybe you can tell us a bit more about you, Amy? Maybe, we can just talk about, well, everything?"

I try to nod.  
I really do.  
But I can't breathe.  
There's no air.  
My hands feel cold, then they go numb.  
Fuck.  
Everything goes black.  
No, please, no.  
Not now.  
I bite on my lip. I can't feel it.  
I don't feel my fingernails digging into my hand either.  
I close my eyes, press them together as hard as I can.  
I think I heard Sam saying something but right now I can't be sure.

An hour later I open my eyes again. It's only been a few seconds, I know that, but it sure as hell felt like a lot longer.  
I put my hands in front of my face. I can see the dark violet crescents on my palms before I wipe over my eyes, drying the tears that are running over my face.  
They are all looking at me.  
I lick my lips because they are dry, just as dry as the rest of my mouth. But then I taste the copper that is my blood. Dammit, I really bit my lip. I try to get the blood off the corner of my mouth but all that gets me is a bloody index finger and smears of red on my cheek.

"Fuck." I bury my head in my hands, trying not to touch my hair with my bloody finger. "Fuck, sorry. You really did not need to see that." I try to laugh it off as usual.

But the truth is that my hands are shaking and still feel cold and I can see that they turned blue.  
I take a deep breath and look back at the three men sitting across from me.  
Dean looks as if he's about to cry.  
But it's Sam who asks. "Are you... Are you okay?"  
"Yeah. Peachy. Fucking great."  
I drop my head back into my hands for a second.  
"Sorry. I get mean when... when that happens."

There's a drop of blood running down my lip, on its way to my chin, I can feel it, but wiping it off with my finger won't do much good and I'm not gonna ruin my shirt by using it. Not my favorite blouse, even though blood wouldn't stick out that much on the red and black plaid. Still. It was my Christmas present, I'm not going to destroy it. So I just lick off the blood.

"Did I... Did I say something wrong?" Sam asks.  
"Ehm... No... I guess this was all just too much." Of course I know what triggered that. But I'm not gonna tell them that I just had a little mental fucking break down because I was afraid of talking. Because I was afraid of them finding out something about me, that would make them think that I am crazy or make them hate me. Which they probably think and do now anyway.

"I'm not, crazy or anything. I just, I don't know. This doesn't happen often. Really. I'm good."  
Sam shakes his head. Dean still looks like he won't be able to talk for a few days and Castiel is the emotionless statue of stone he always is. "You don't have to apologize. We know what that's like. We've all been through our fair share of anxiety and panic attacks, trust me."  
I'm not sure if I believe him. But then again, they are hunters. Hunters are damaged goods. Everyone knows that.

"Okay, ehm, I'm just gonna go to bed now. Sorry. Thank you. For letting me stay I mean. No idea where I'd go." I laugh again. A sad sad horrible little laugh.  
I get up and walk over to a hallway leading to dozens of bedrooms, trying not to shake, not to let them see how bad my whole body is trembling.  
I forgot my backpack in the library where I put it under the table. Super. But I can't go back, not right now.

So I just collapse onto my bed and wait for the darkness to wash over me.


	4. Welcome To My Life

When I wake up, it's almost six am. Wow. I don't think I've ever slept that long. I slept more than six hours which usually only happens after I've been on a hunt and haven't slept in more than a week. Not everything about being a part angel part human freak is bad.  
Besides not needing a lot of sleep, I also don't need showers or toothbrushes all that often, so I just comb my hair with my hand and walk back to the library.

It's so quiet. I hate that. Back home there was always some sort of sound. Maya in the kitchen, slamming pots against each other, a bird, the wind in the trees, the creek near by. When I moved into our, or, well, my apartment, last spring, it was unbearably quiet so I started listening to music all the time.  
But if I'd put on music, no matter how low I'd turn the volume, I'd wake up the two hunters sleeping just down the hall.

So I just grab my backpack from where I left it yesterday and bring it back to my room. I take out my phone and check it. Battery almost full and no calls, messages, E-Mails or anything like that. Of course. Who'd text me? Everyone that might, is dead or gone.  
But then I go check my Facebook page. In one of the groups, there are more than ten new posts. It's a group called "Hunters in Europe". Not to brag or anything, but that was my idea. I set up a Facebook group for hunters in southern Germany when I was thirteen. Now there are groups for all German hunters; hunters in southern or northern Europe; hunters from Germany and Austria and Switzerland; and also from France or Poland or every other country in Europe. There's a group for pretty much every region, small or huge, so that hunters can always ask for help if they need it and somebody who's close can come over, or we can share new ways to kill whatever we need to kill. It was also a really good installment when the British Men of Letters invaded Europe and started killing both monsters and hunters.  
Before I left for the US I had asked if anyone new about a similar group in the States and a few people had mentioned hunters from overseas, I then asked one of them to put me into the American group.  
It's mostly young hunters, the oldest are thirty, thirty-five. Older hunters don't really like it, I had to learn that when one tried to kill me because he thought everyone could read what was discussed in the groups.  
Of course, none of us used their real Facebook page, we have fake hunter profiles. Mine was called Johanna MÃ¼ller. I don't know what was possessing me to use my mother's second name (not a demon though, Anti-Possession-Tattoo be thanked), but there it was.  
Apparently, there had been a huge vamps nest that took several hunters from France, Spain, and Portugal to be stopped from killing off an entire village in Andalusia. The group is filled with pictures taken by the hunters and shared newspaper articles. But now, everything is fine.  
I put my phone back into my backpack and yank out a tank top. I put on the black top that said "I put the cute in execute" (Maya had gotten it for me for my sixteenth birthday... Sometimes I really hated her. But now I just can't bring myself to throw it away, and since I got like five tops or T shirts, three blouses and two black pullovers I simply can't afford to throw anything away) and pulled the plaid red blouse I was wearing yesterday and this night open over it.

Quietly, trying not to wake anyone up, I go to the kitchen.  
My pie isn't on the stove anymore. Someone cleaned the whole room, no more flour stains everywhere and the egg I dropped yesterday is gone, too. Maybe they cleaned last night after I went to bed.  
"Guten Morgen." The deep voice startles me even more than the German greeting, I totally forgot about the stupid angel!  
"Morgen?" I kind of mumble. I was raised to be polite. Even though some people, including an angel, did not deserve it.  
He is sitting at the table at one end of the room, a laptop in front of him. In his hands is something I don't recognize at first, but then I'm sure. He's knitting. Apparently while watching Orange Is The New Black.  
I have to laugh. "Which episode are you on?" The Winchesters trust him. They let him live in their bunker, Sam seems to even let him use his laptop. Maybe I should try not to think about killing him. Or at least act like I'm not.  
"I do not know. I have been watching quite a while now. There is a new season and I wanted to re watch the one before that."  
"So a good old binge, eh? Been there, done that, fucked up an exam", I now really have to laugh. After I got myself a cup of hot water and poured some raspberry syrup I bought in it, I sit at the table, two chairs away from the angel, and turn the Laptop so that we both can watch and press play.

Finally some sounds.  
There are the dialogues, Castiel's almost silent laughs, the sound his needles make when they bump against each other.

We sit there for almost an hour, neither of us moving, just letting Netflix do its thing, until I realize, that both our eyes are glowing. When did that happen? But somehow it's comforting. I'm not the freak here, he is. And he's used to seeing everybody's souls. I try to watch him out of the corner of my eye so that he doesn't notice. There's only one soul. There should have been two. Why didn't I notice yesterday? His meat suit is empty. So he either picked up a coma patient (I've seen enough of them to know that most lose their soul when the person dies and leaves behind an empty meat suit) or he got his host killed. I'm really hoping that it's option number one.

Another hour later, it's almost eight now, Sam comes into the kitchen. He looks at us, surprised. I just smile a little. Then I realize what my eyes look like and go back to normal human eyes.  
"Mornin' Sam. Castiel and I are watching Orange is the new Black."  
"I can see that. Good morning." He goes and gets himself a cup of coffee and sits down between us.  
"I got some bread yesterday. It's really true, you Americans only have white bread, it's horrible!" I start to playfully whine. "I don't want toast, I want real good dark bread!"  
Sam laughs. "Yeah, right? Everyone is always eating that unhealthy stuff!"  
Both of us are laughing now, the angel is completely engrossed in his show.  
"But I did get some half whole wheat bread, it's almost edible" I continue and get up to get bread, butter, jam, peanut butter and four knives and plates and put all of it on the table. When Sam starts to get up to help me I shake my head and finish the task by myself.  
"Dean's not gonna be here till noon, we can eat without him, trust me. Cass, you want me to make you some PB&J's?" The angel nods without looking at Sam who just laughs.  
We eat while the same noises from earlier fill the small room. Plus Sam eating which really isn't that quiet.

Half an episode later Dean comes busting into the room and before I can finish my victorious shout at Sam: "Ha! You were saying?!", Dean says: "Garth called. He needs our help with a case."  
Sam and Castiel nod and get up. Castiel stops the episode currently playing and Sam grabs the laptop. They leave their plates and mugs and everything on the table so I do the same and stand up.  
"Meet in the garage in five." Dean's almost out of the room when I ask, "Where's that?"  
All of them turn to me.  
"Where's the garage?"  
"Oh!" Dean lifts his finger and points at me. "You're not coming."  
"Says who?"  
"Me!"  
"So?"  
"It's dangerous!"  
"Duh!"  
"You'll stay here!"  
"Why?"  
"Because I say so!"  
"And why should I listen to you?"  
"Because I am your father!"  
"Listen, Darth Vader. You don't decide what I do just because of what I told you yesterday. If you and your friend need help, I can help. Just let me."

Sam looks as if he wants to interfere but he doesn't. He probably knows that one of us would rip his head off if he tried.

"You're not going to hunt with us, you have no idea, what that means!"  
"Wow. Really? I've been hunting for eight years now. Eight. You really think I don't know what it's like? You really think I don't know it's dangerous? I can help you, okay? I got a few tricks you don't know about. If you'd let me help we'd be in and out of there in a day."  
Silence. Again.  
"We'll meet in the library in a few minutes, okay?" Sam pushes past Dean and leaves. I follow him and go to my room.

I already know what I'm gonna take with me. I open the backpack and pour its content onto my unmade bed. Then I throw a fresh top, another pair of jeans, the first aid kit, some panties, my toothbrush, washed socks, a pant suit for Agent Lena Meyer, some text books and my diary back in. I take my parka from my bed and put it on, ignoring my leather jacket. It might look better but it's just not warm enough for the rather cold late September. I'm already wearing my leather boots so I'm all set and walk to the library, not giving them a chance to just leave without me.

Castiel is already there, still wearing his trench coat which he probably never takes off. I nod in his direction and he nods back. I think I'm doing pretty good at acting like I don't hate him. Which I very much still do. The guy tried to kill me because I wanted to show my best friend how cool my eyes could glow.  
Dean comes in, looking grumpy. He frowns at me and I stick out my tongue. Ass.  
He's wearing a black t-shirt, a brown-green flannel and a jacket that looks like he's been wearing it on every hunt he's been on in the past ten years. Thinking about it, I remember him wearing that jacket yesterday too.  
We just stand there until Sam comes in, carrying the same duffel bag Dean has laying at his feet.

Sam looks at us, stops and starts laughing.  
Surprised I look at him, then at all of us and try to imagine why he would be laughing.  
Castiel and Dean stare at the younger Winchester, obviously wondering the same.  
"I'm sorry", Sam manages to get out between two waves of laughter. "I don't even know why it's so funny. But... Your jacket!" He points at me. What's wrong with my fucking jacket?  
"If-" he has to stop and take a deep breath. "If Dean's and Cass' jackets had a love child, that's probably what it would look like!" And he doubles over again. I take a quick look at our jackets and he's right. So I laugh too. Even the angel seems somewhat amused.  
"Yeah. Right." Dean really is grumpy.  
I frown at Sam while we all walk to the car together.

The garage is amazing. I can't drive but the cars in here are just beautiful, old, but they look as if they could beat every modern car's ass.  
The most beautiful car is a black one, sitting right in front of the exit. The men walk over to it so I just follow. After throwing their stuff into the trunk, Sam also putting my back pack in there, when Dean walks to the driver's seat door and Castiel opens the one behind him while Sam rides shotgun it looks like routine. So I walk to the door behind Sam's seat but before I get in I just kind of pet the car in awe.  
I don't know crap about cars but this one, God, this one is amazing.  
The garage door opens as I get into the black leather back seat and Dean turns around, looks at me, and says proudly "Beautiful, ain't she?" The only thing I can do is just nod. "Sorry, little one, you don't get to drive her. I usually don't even let Cass drive and I've never seen you behind the wheel, so, no way."  
"Okay. I can't even drive, so..."  
All three of them look at me. What? Is it really so weird to not be able to drive a car?  
"What?"  
"You can't drive?"  
"No. We didn't have the money. Or the time. And, well, no car either."  
"But the people you were living with, didn't they...?" Dean stops. They are acting as if I committed a crime of some sort.  
"Yeah. Right. They taught me how to drive when I was ten. Right before we bolted." There it is again, that stupid weird little laugh I hate so much.  
"Wait, what?" Dean sounds surprised.  
"You know, nuns are pretty big hearted people. Who else would willingly take care of twenty kids? But I guess they kinda draw the line at Lycanthropes." I shrug.

Silence. Again.  
"Aren't we gonna drive anywhere?" I make myself a little more comfortable.  
"Eh... Uhm, yeah. Let's go."  
Dean turns on the car and we leave the bunker.

Lebanon, Kansas, has gotten really small in the rear view mirror, when the questions start.  
"Why did you leave?" Dean's eyes are fixed on the road.  
"My, ehm, best friend, I guess, even though we kinda grew up together, so you could call her my sister too, but that would be... I don't know..." I pause for a second. That might be a conversation we should have another time. "Well, she got attacked by a werewolf when we were walking home from school."  
I can hear them gasp. Yeah, werewolves. Gotta love them.  
"Did you," Dean hesitates. "Did you-"  
"Kill her?", I ask. He nods.

"No. God, no!" I shake my head so hard that my braids almost hit Castiel in the face. "I helped her control it. I don't know if you know that, but there are werewolves that don't get bitten. They are born this way and prefer to call themselves Lycanthropes." They nod knowingly. Of course they know about it. They're the Winchesters. "And the first four generations of bitten werewolves can control themselves more or less. Maya was really really good at it. If she got upset or sometimes even when she was really happy or sad, you could see it in her eyes, but she didn't wolf out. Praying helped her. Or meditating, or well, a mixture of both. She rarely acted on her wolf instincts, sometimes around a full moon, but otherwise, she was in control. But one full moon happened to be on the anniversary of her parents' death. They died when she was four so she kind of remembered them, but not really. Still, the date was always hard on her. Plus the full moon... She changed in the garden. One of the nuns, Sister Elke saw her. She screamed so loud she woke up the whole house, which kind of saved us, because there were a lot of small kids that started crying and the nuns had to take care of them. So I grabbed a few of our things, our bags for school and some of the money we had, and ran out. Maya had run off into the woods and I knew where she was gonna be so I went there, a little creek in the forest behind the home. I waited for her and together we took a bus out of town the next morning." I couldn't stop talking. The words just kind of flowed out of my mouth without me thinking about them.  
"We stayed in a hut in the woods three towns over we once had found on a field trip. Then we wanted to go back. We were eleven. We were hungry and cold and dirty and just wanted to go home. Before we got to the home a man asked us if we were Maya and Amelie and we said no, because, you know, you're taught not to talk to strange men, but he said he knew what had happened and what Maya was and that he could help us. Turns out he was a hunter but he didn't want to kill an eleven year old innocent. He taught us what he knew about hunting, got us into another school far away from the town we grew up in so that no one would recognize us. We dyed our hair and got fake identities. He tried to pay everything for us, he really did. But it was just too much and he had no idea how to take care of two pre-teens. So we moved out and started to kind of care for ourselves. He still helped us out, but we stole a tent and camped in a part of the woods that belonged to his family. We ate what we could find out there, Maya went hunting every now and then. We walked to school and started to build a little hut next to a creek. It wasn't a lot but it was enough." The memory makes me smile. The hut was small and cold and sometimes, when it rained a lot, also wet. But we didn't care. It was our home. Where no one would scream because of who we are. Where I didn't have to hide my powers and Maya could wolf out whenever she wanted to.  
I stifle a laugh when I remember Maya trying to catch a fish for the first time.  
"We lived there for almost eight years. No one really questioned where we lived, the hunter, Heiner, would sign what we needed for school and we got pretty good at faking official papers. Maya didn't go to school as long as I did so she could earn money and I could go to university. She was working in a metal factory, she really liked her job and I enjoyed studying. Last year we had enough money to get ourselves a small apartment but..."

And there it is again. The silence.

I have my eyes fixed on the tachometer. It's been 23 miles since I stopped talking. Times 1.6, that would make 36.8 kilometers. It took us about 18 minutes. So Dean is driving around... 123 kilometers per hour. Which are 77 miles per hour? I'm not sure, but I guess that's a lot faster than what you're allowed to drive in the US. It's a lot more than what you're allowed to drive in Germany, on a road like this, so...  
I start calculating percentages of how much Dean is going over the speed limits that I know. 50 kilometers per hour in a town, 100 outside of town, when he speaks up.

"So, you started hunting when Maya got bit?"  
I nod even though he can't see me. "Yes. Or, well, not right after. We refused to get into that business. But then-" I stop. I don't know if I want to tell them. I don't know if I should.  
"Then what?" Dean seems to drive even faster, his eyes still only on the road, his head not moving a bit. I quickly check his soul and, like I thought, it's swirling all over the place.

"Then... Then the angels came again."


	5. Back On The Road Again

"The angels?"  
"Again?"  
"Who?"  
Dean, Sam, and Castiel all talk at the same time.

"Yeah, ehm, three angels. Not the same as when I was five. Not for the same reason either. I only know one name. Zachariah. Ass."  
"Wait, Zachariah bothered you?" Dean sounds... almost angry?  
"Eh, yeah. He wanted me to help him. I was supposed to say 'Yes' to something. Or someone, I think. They never really explained anything. I was eleven, they probably thought I was stupid enough to agree to whatever they wanted from me. I mean, they did promise a lot, like, me and my parents being a real family, or my best friend being a normal human being again. I was really really close to saying yes. But. I don't know." I shrug. "I don't like angels all that much as you might imagine. And then they just stopped coming by. They said they had another option that would probably work better anyway, so..."  
For the first time since we left the bunker about half an hour ago, Dean turns away from the road and looks at the angel sitting behind him.  
"Really? Really, Cass, they would have asked an eleven-year-old girl to fight Lucifer? Really?"  
"Wait, that's what this was about? Fighting the devil? So it's true? You guys really did stop the apocalypse?" I've heard so much about them, from the books, the internet, other hunters, there are rumors, lots of them. About those two American hunters that stopped an apocalypse. And then another one. Some even blame them for a few things, a few even say the apocalypse was their fault. I mean, I don't know if any of that is true, but... There's a lot of stuff out there that is true, so...  
"Ehm. Yeah. Kind of." Sam doesn't seem to want to talk about it. Which I kind of get. I suppose the apocalypse doesn't sound like a great memory.  
So I just nod and turn my head back to the window, watching the landscape fly by. I don't even know where we are going...

Somehow we all just the let the topic of angels and apocalypses go and go back to silence. Dean turns on the radio and then asks Sam to put in a tape.  
Chuck, in which Millennium does he live? But I don't argue with the music that comes on. It's okay. Better than the time Maya really got into techno. That was a horrible horrible time I don't like to remember.

Two tape changes later, around 12 o'clock, I clear my throat. Dean asks: "What is it, little one?"  
I want to get mad at him for his comment but right now I have other problems.  
"Could we, uhm, stop at a gas station maybe? I need to go to the toilet."  
They all turn to me and look as if I'd just insulted their mothers.  
I give them a smile that, I hope, is the apologetic cute smile that usually gets me out of pretty much every trouble I get in.  
Dean doesn't look pleased but he just says that he'll pull over as soon as possible.  
"Thanks."

When we stop I get out of the car and walk to the back. But I honestly have no idea how to open the trunk, so I walk up to the driver's door and knock on the window.  
"What?" Dean scoffs after opening the door.  
"I need my backpack. And I don't know how to open the trunk."  
"Why?"  
"I just... I need something in my back pack."  
"To go to the toilet?"  
"Yes..."  
"What could you possibly need to go to the-"  
Sam interrupts his brother by loudly clearing his throat.  
He gets out of the car and goes to the back, opening the trunk for me. He smiles at me, in an attempt to excuse his brother, I guess. I laugh quietly and go grab the small bag that is hooked to the top of my backpack and walk over to the gas station.  
I can hear Dean arguing with Sam, who gets a little louder just as I walk out of ear shot. I have to laugh. I suppose they don't spend a lot of time with women.

When I get back Dean's face is red and he mumbles some sort of apology  
."Everything's fine, we'll probably just have to stop again in a few hours. Where are we going anyways?"  
Sam's grinning, I can hear it in his voice. "Wisconsin", he says.  
"Okaaay... I have no idea where that is."  
And once again everyone stares at me. I don't know a lot about driving, but I'm guessing Dean should probably look at the road a little more and a little less back at me.  
"North from Kansas, where the bunker is. And a little east. It's gonna take us about nine hours. Maybe we can make it in less and be there before dinner", Dean says, his eyes now finally back on the highway.

Another stop later we arrive in a small town which's name I can't remember even though I read the sign literally a second ago. Whatever.  
We all get out of the car after Dean parked it- her- in front of a motel. Sam goes to get us rooms while Dean takes out his phone to call the hunter we're here to help.  
When Sam gets back Dean breaks the awkward silence we held while Sam was gone. I would have loved to talk to Dean but I just don't feel very comfortable around the angel they so willingly trust.  
"Okay, let's go get something to eat. I'm fucking starving," Dean exclaims and walks to the diner on the other side of the road.  
"Yeah, me too. I mean, I was used to going a few days without eating, and I had a biiiiig breakfast today and I'm already hungry? God, I've gone soft." I laugh again. It sounds weird, even to me. I don't even know why I keep doing it, that stupid laugh after every remotely uncomfortable thing I say. The three men stop and turn to me but then seem to come to an agreement of not talking about it right now. Not when we all can hear Sam's guts growling angrily.

Sam's steps are so huge he's quickly a few steps ahead of us and then Castiel sees a bee, probably the last one that is still alive at this time of the year, and stops to look at it. After a quick glance in his direction, Dean just shrugs and keeps walking. We arrive at the road together, Sam already having crossed it, but we have to wait because a lot of cars are coming right now.  
"So, ehm," I start, not really knowing where I'm going with this. "So, you believe me? That I'm your daughter and all that?"  
"Yeah," Dean nods. "Yeah. I read your mothers letter and," he clears his throat, "you do look a lot like her. I'm just really sorry that you had to grow up like that, I didn't-"  
"I believe you," I cut in. "You didn't know about me. I've heard about you, the Winchesters I mean. You don't seem to be the kind of people that abandon kids." I turn to him and smile.  
"Don't believe everything you hear." He's laughing. Or at least almost. Somehow that makes me really happy.

We cross the street and Castiel catches up to us. Together with Sam, who waited in front of the door, we enter the diner and I just take the lead. I go to a table in the far corner and sit so that my back is against the wall. That way I can see the door, the restroom and like ninety percent of the other tables, just the way I like it.  
Sam sits next to me, which kind of impairs my view but also makes me feel safe, Dean sits across from me and the angel slides up next to him.  
"So, that hunter we're here to help, where is he?"  
"He had to go back to his wife," Dean says, "she went into labor last night, that's why he called us to take over for him. He wants to be with her."  
I have to smile really hard. "That's great! Ah, I just love kids!"

A waitress comes over to our table and takes our orders. Dean wants a burger and pie, Sam orders a salad, I go with pasta and Castiel surprises me by ordering a burger too.

"You love kids?" Dean asks once the waitress is gone.  
"Yes. I wanted to become a pediatrician."  
They all look at me, shocked yet again.  
"Well, I kind of still want to, but you know, I dropped out of university so that's gonna be hard..." I look down on the table. I really really want to go back, keep studying medicine and help people, not just by killing the things that go bump in the night, but also as a doctor. But I just can't.  
"You," Dean stutters, "you, you went to med school?"  
"Ehm, yeah, well, I studied medicine at university, I don't know if that's the same as going to med school, but, well..." I trail off.  
"You went to med school."  
"Yes, Dean, is that so unbelievable?"  
"No, no! Sorry."  
Sam clears his throat as if there's something really obvious that everybody, or well, especially me, is missing.  
"So, why did you drop out?" Sam asks as the waitress comes over again, bringing our meals. She has to go back to the kitchen to fetch the two burgers after dropping off the salad and my spaghetti and I don't answer while she does. For one, because it feels as if she just isn't part of this conversation and shouldn't be and also because I don't know what I should say. If I'm not lucky, this could end everything. Or I'll just phrase it differently. Then I'll have more time 'til I have to tell them.  
Castiel and Dean simultaneously take a bite of their burgers and Sam starts chewing on a few leaves while I just poke around in my pasta.

"Maya died."

Silence.  
The angel takes another bite, unfazed.  
Sam scoffs.  
Dean looks down at his burger.  
"I'm sorry." Dean really does sound sorry.  
"Yeah, well, thanks, I guess." Slowly I roll a few noodles on my fork and try to get them into my mouth without splashing sauce all over or noodle ends hanging from my mouth.  
I also hope that my fingers don't start trembling. Not after what happened last night.

Dinner is over pretty fast. No one speaks again, not really, though Dean starts hitting on the, admittedly hot, waitress, but then he seems to remember that I am there and stops.  
When we walk back over to the motel it's pitch black.  
Sam rented two rooms right next to each other. I turn to Castiel and ask the angel if he sleeps. I think this might be the first real conversation we had.  
"I do not require rest even though my vessel seems to respond positively to a few hours of sleep. It is the same with the burgers. I do not need them to have power, but they do make my vessel happy."  
"Yeah, right. Well, I don't. Not on a hunt at least. I can go a week or two without sleep, so I'll just sit in the car and research a little and you guys can have the rooms to yourselves. What do we know about this job?"  
"You what?!"  
"I'd like to know what you guys got on the case so I can research and-"  
"You don't sleep?" Dean cuts in.  
"I do. Just not a lot."  
They're making me really uncomfortable the way they're all staring at me.  
"I need an hour or two a night, but on a hunt, I can go a week or two without sleep. So I can research and you got the rooms to yourselves. Win-win, right?" Sam already opened the trunk so I go over and grab my rucksack. "And research would be a lot easier if I already knew what we got."  
None of the three men move. I'm slowly getting the feeling that they aren't used to people surprising or shocking them the way I apparently am. They are probably used to being in control and being the ones that know more than others.

"Soooo," I drag out the word. "You gonna help me or not?"  
"Ehm, yeah, ehm," Dean stutters again. "Sam got something. Sam give her your laptop."  
Sam's shocked look almost makes me laugh. "Yeah, sure."  
Dean motions over to the rooms they rented. "Little one, you can sit in the motel room to research, you don't have to sit out here in the cold."  
"And watch you guys sleep?" Now I do laugh. "Okay."  
Sam pulls four keys out of his jacket's pocket and throws two to Dean who gives one to Castiel.

Everyone grabs their duffel bags and we go into the rooms, mumbling a few "Good night"s, Dean and the angel go into the right room, Sam and I enter the left one. It's just two beds, a door to a bathroom and a little table, everything is some shade of brown or gray. All in all, it looks really sad and lonely.  
Sam sits down on one of the beds. "I thought, you might not want to be alone with Cass, and I hate sleeping in the same room as him because he talks sometimes. So, I hope this is okay with you."  
"Yeah," I smile at him. "It's okay."  
I like Sam. Maybe it's just because I haven't spent my entire life hating the idea of him as I did with Dean, and because he isn't one of the guys that tried to kill me before I went to school, but right now he's my favorite out of the trio.

"So," he sounds uncomfortable asking, "you and Maya were..."  
I bite my lip and let myself fall onto one of the chairs at the table. It squeaks.  
"Yeah. Yeah, we were... I know, it's weird, right? I mean, we grew up together, we used to tell people that we were sisters, but... I don't know."  
He gets out of his jacket and throws it on the duffel bag sitting at the end of his bed before he says: "No, it's not weird. You fell in love with someone you've known for a long time, that's not unusual, I guess."  
"Mmh." The cut on his face suddenly catches my attention. Dammit, I should have thought of that this morning. What kind of doctor would I be if I couldn't even remember the one injury my single patient had?

"Hey, let me look at your face again, okay? We should change the bandages." Grabbing the first aid kit from my rucksack I walk over to him. He's stupidly tall so even when he's sitting on the bed his head is almost too high up for me to reach well. But it should work.  
As I gently rip off the bandages I put on his forehead yesterday he speaks again.  
"I went to school too. Stanford."  
I don't know what to say. I knew that Sam tried to get out of the life, I also know that it didn't work. What a surprise. The only way you get out of this life is in a body bag. I've seen that a couple of times.  
"I wanted to become a lawyer. I had a girlfriend, too."  
Jessica, I think her name was. She was mentioned in the summary my internet friend sent me a while ago. Jessica.  
"She died too. And I dropped out of school and went back to hunting. I wanted to stay, I wanted to go back to Stanford after getting revenge for Jess, but, I couldn't. I couldn't be there without her. And Dean needed me, so..." His voice trails off. The cut looks a lot better than yesterday, just as expected. He does have angel Grace in him, and Grace doesn't do too well with scars.  
"So, I... I get why you left, is all I wanted to say. I get it."

Not knowing what to say I just put a band aid on his forehead and put all my stuff back in the first aid kit. "It shouldn't bleed anymore so we'll just have to change the band aid tomorrow. Just try not to get it wet when you're taking a shower, okay?"  
He nods and I sit back down at the table, stuff the first aid kit back into my rucksack and pull out my tablet.  
Sam whistles when he sees that it's a Surface. The things are expensive as hell.  
"How did you...?"  
"I said I was a good hunter. Never said I wasn't a thief too."


	6. Hate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little shorter than the others and I'm not really happy with it, but here you go:)

At six in the morning, Dean knocks at our door and I let him and Castiel in. The smell of the breakfast they're carrying fills the room within seconds. I don't think I'll ever get why people would eat bacon in the morning. Really, _bacon_? For breakfast?  
The angel sits on the bed that was supposed to be mine and starts knitting. Dean just laughs at the Angel of the Lord, sitting in a crappy motel room, knitting a pink scarf.  
Sam pulls the shirt he was wearing yesterday back over his head and sits on his bed while his brother claims the chair opposite of mine. The table is completely full, my tablet, Sam's laptop, and the papers I read last night taking all the space there is, so he drops the bags of food on the bed closest to him, the one Castiel is sitting on.  
Everyone, even the angel, grabs something to eat, the two Winchester men consuming about half a ton of bacon each, while I manage to grab a sandwich.

"So, what do you got?" Dean asks, his mouth full.  
"Three deaths, two men and a woman. I couldn't find anything to connect them. They didn't even die from the same thing. One of the men died from pneumonia, the other because of a simple cold. And the woman apparently didn't survive a staph infection after a surgery. The only thing suggesting that there is a case is a nurse saying he saw a ghost standing over each one of them before they died. Poor bastard managed to have shifts every time one of them died, which is real bad luck since the guy with the cold died in June."  
"Wait," Dean interrupts me, "the guy had a cold that killed him, in _June_?"  
"Yeah, kinda weird, especially because he was only in his thirties. Okay, so the nurse, he wrote something about the ghost on a blog, which your friend must have found. I read the blog like ten times. He says it was a woman, and she," I stop, looking at Dean who seems to be trying to chew louder than his brother. Chuck, how many stripes of bacon can a man eat? "Ehm, she leaned over the dying patients and whispered something."  
"What?" I almost don't understand what Dean says because his mouth is full of food. Manners?  
"Huh?"  
Dean swallows and asks again: "What was she whispering?"  
" _Greed_. Which makes zero sense. There has never been a woman in this little province town that got murdered for her money, or any other kind of violent death involving money. And the vics weren't rich either."

All three of them murmur something that sounds like they agree with me while eating. They are tall, but I wouldn't have thought that they could seriously eat everything that was in those bags. But I think if they keep eating at that rate, they'll manage.  
"So, I think we should go, talk to the nurse. I've hacked into the hospital's intranet, he's working this morning, so we could go at around," I look at the clock, thinking back to the internship I did in the hospital for university, "maybe nine, or half past. By then the nurses should be done with breakfast and washing patients and prepping them for procedures and stuff so he'll have some time. You guys got fake badges?"  
Sam laughs as if I've just asked him whether he got a head. "Yeah, you?"  
"Made some before I came over to the US. FBI?"  
"Yeah, probably the best option."  
"What are we gonna do 'til nine o'clock?" At least this once Dean swallows down his food before speaking. "Questioning the families?"  
"At six in the morning? Great idea."  
"Soooo, poker, anyone?"

And then we play poker for three hours.

Sam is good. Castiel is horrible. Dean is great. I'm better. Which makes Dean really grumpy, which makes Sam really happy and in the end we all just laugh at the hurt look on Dean's face.  
"Shudup, everybody. And put on your suits."

He goes back over to the other room while Sam lets me go to the bathroom first so I don't have to be alone with Castiel. My hair still looks fine after taking a shower last night, so I just put it all together in a high bun and throw on my pant suit and slip my badge into one of the pockets. A knife into another one, as well as some salt, holy water and a granola bar. All set.  
When I get back out, Dean is already back and Sam goes into the bathroom. I can hear the shower and just hope he doesn't soak his cut.  
"You're not gonna change, Castiel?" I ask.  
"No," is the only response I get before he just goes back to knitting and ignoring us.  
"Okay then," I mumble, turning to Dean, not sure what we should talk about.  
He's smiling. I like it when he smiles. His eyes seem to sparkle when he does.  
"So, you don't need sleep?"  
"Not really. I guess it's because of the angel Grace. Angels don't need sleep, so I almost don't. Came in handy when I was in school. I was studying, going to lectures, working three part time jobs and, well, a job every now and then." I smile, but he doesn't.  
"What?"  
"Three jobs? Son of a bitch. I'm sorry."  
I shrug. "Not your fault. And it was okay. Like I said, I don't really need sleep."  
"Still. Sorry."

Only Castiel's needles and the sound of the shower from behind a closed door fill the following silence.

"What else? What else did you get from the Grace?"  
"Well, I can see souls and sometimes I could feel when someone really needed me. I can't fly or zap myself somewhere. Sometimes I can move stuff a little, but not really. Usually, when someone's lying to me I feel it, too, but only if they think the lie they're telling is a big thing. Which makes it even worse, I guess... Maya thought that I was smarter because of it, too. My memory's pretty great. No scars, just like you guys. I heal fast, as do you, right? Oh, and I can speed up someone else's healing process which gave me the idea of studying medicine in the first place. So, if I did my job well, Sam's face should be healed by tonight. Maybe even already."  
My father just stares at me.

Then the door opens and Sam gets out, wearing a suit, his hair wet. And the band aid too. Idiot.  
"Ah, speaking of the devil!"  
Sam looks at me, shocked, and Dean tries to hide a laugh.  
"What?"  
"Nothing. Forget it."  
Okay. Don't tell me. Whatever.

I go over to my uncle- it still feels weird to think of them as my father and my uncle but I try to do so as often as possible, so I get used to it- and pull at the band aid which isn't easy because he's tall and also trying to fight me off. But I manage anyway. And, just as I thought, "See, no scar, no nothing."  
"Mmh," Dean hums. "And that's because of the Grace we have in us?"  
"Yup," I say as I dump the wet bandage in the trash and go grab my rucksack. We're not gonna leave anything in the room in case we have to leave and don't have time to come back.  
"Okay, everybody, in the car!" Dean leads the way out of the door and we all throw our stuff in the trunk and pile back into the car the same way we did yesterday.

It's just a five-minute drive to the small hospital at the edge of town. Once we get there, everybody grabs their badges and I tell them my fake name and they tell me theirs. Apparently, Agent Lena Meyer is on a job with Agent Bloom, Roeser and Lanier. I don't seem to be the only one stealing my fake names from musicians.  
We go to the hospital wing in which the vics died and, just as I said, the nurses are sitting at their desks, doing paper work, which is usually the time when they are most likely to talk to you because they aren't as busy as they are at any other time of the day.  
"Wait!" I grab Sam's sleeve and he and the other two men stop. "That's him." They follow the finger I point on the nurse standing at coffee machine with their eyes.  
I smile at them and unbutton my blouse a little at the top and pull the hairband out of my bun, shaking my hair loose. "I got this one."

Before they can protest I walk over to the nurse who might be five years older than I am. But Agent Meyer is 22, so just a little younger than him. Perfect.  
"Hello," I say, pull out my badge and show it to him. "Agent Lena Meyer from the FBI." I just hope my accent doesn't give me away. But I've worked on it for years, so it should be all right. "You are Mr. Jake Fisher?"  
He nods and turns to me, looking at my badge.  
"Yes, that would be me," he says and returns my smile. Jackpot.  
"Me and my partners wanted to talk to you about something. Would it be all right if I asked you some questions?" The way he looks at me shows me that I really managed to blush a little. Well, he's not that bad to look at and a man's ego is often easily touched by a little affection. When we were younger, Maya and I used to use our _cuteness_ to get people to tell us stuff. A few years ago we had to switch to this approach, but it works too.  
"Yeah, sure."  
We go into the nurses' break room and on my way there I smile at the three men angrily staring at me.

"Thank you for your cooperation." My voice is cold, I know that. He notices too and just shrugs, leaving me in the hallway.  
Castiel, Sam and Dean still stand where I left them, Dean pushes himself away from the wall when I get closer to them.  
He starts to say something but I walk right past them, through the halls and out on the parking lot.

Leaned against the car I pull out my phone and log into the WiFi from the little coffee place on the other side of the road.  
Just a few seconds after opening Facebook I'm sure.  
Why didn't I notice earlier?  
"What happened?" Dean sounds out of breath, I must have run pretty fast, sometimes I don't notice.

When Sam and Castiel are there too, I start telling them about what Jake Fisher told me.  
"He said pretty much what we knew, didn't change anything about the story, I think he really did see and hear what he wrote. He just didn't know better. The ghost didn't say _Greed_ , she said _GRID_."  
Neither Dean nor Castiel seem to recognize the term, but Sam says, "Wait, isn't that...?"  
"Yeah. We've got ourselves a homophobic ghost. Yay. Just what I needed today."


	7. Bottoms Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys:)  
> I'm working on this every now and then, but school's kinda rough right now... I know the content to about a thousand chapters I want to write but I suck at connecting them, haha.  
> But I kind of like Amy and am really looking forward to seeing where she might end up:)

I start to talk after we all have a cup of coffee sitting in front of us.  
My eyes are still locked on the hospital on the other side of the street though.  
"GRID means _Gay related immune deficiency_. That's what AIDS was called in the 80's and 90's because they had no clue what it really was. In the early 80's a lot of gay men came to the hospitals with different infections that they should have easily been able to fight if they were healthy. AIDS is _Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome_ , so actually what happens after you get infected by HIV, _human immunodeficiency virus_. The men died of what was called GRID or _Gay plague_ or even _Gay cancer_ because no one really gave a fuck about what it really was since only homosexuals were affected, and, well, they deserved it, right?"

I try to calm down to finish my sentence.  
Inhale.  
Exhale.  
Don't show your trembling fingers.  
Too many memories and too much anger.  
Inhale.  
Time's have changed.  
Exhale.  
Sam wasn't angry or grossed out when he found out. Dean isn't going to be either. Right?

"The men, they died of those infections because the virus kind of kills your immune system, you know?"  
Dean shakes his head. "How does it work? I guess we should know that, right?"  
I nod. "So, when you get infected by HIV; which works via bodily fluids, mostly blood since the concentration in saliva isn't high enough to infect someone, and therefore via sex or the use of the same needle when taking drugs, which is why it stayed in the gay community for a while; the virus can stay dormant for up to 15 years. Untreated, that is. Nowadays you can stop the virus from progressing, there is still no cure, but you can keep it in the initial cells that it infected. But after a while, there's usually a big break out, as far as I can remember. Your body builds more and more viruses while trying to just replicate its own cells. And the viruses infect the T-cells which are crucial for our immune system. It's a beautiful virus, probably one of the best, because retro viruses go unnoticed for a really long time and can barely be treated since they are RNA-viruses and-"  
Dean interrupts me, which is probably a good thing because I just started marveling about a virus that kills people all the time. "Okay, now you've lost me."  
"Sorry," I take a sip of my coffee, "anyway, when it does break out, you're fucked. Without the T-cells, the rest of the immune system can't work efficiently and opportunist bacteria or viruses can infect you. Even cancer spreads or arises a lot more often. Your body can't beat the illnesses it used to get rid off real easy anymore, it can't even fight them. Those infections and illnesses are what is called AIDS, because HIV itself doesn't kill you. It just paves the way for other illnesses, such as pneumonia, the cold or a staph infection.  
In the end stages, patients start losing weight and, well, just kind of fade away, depending on what it really is that killed them. A lot of patients have neurological or psychological illnesses in the end too. It might be a beautiful virus, that is even used to cure people, but the disease is horrible.  
I looked up the vics on Facebook, and well, turns out that the two men were a couple. And the woman has a girlfriend, too. So, I'm guessing, the ghost kills homosexuals, maybe,... I don't know, but I was thinking, what if her husband died from it?"  
"You mean, he had an affair with a man and got AIDS?" Sam picks up my thought.  
I nod. "Yeah. And well, if it was an affair, then the wife probably got it too. It's not exactly a violent death, but it's a horrible one that she might feel, was not what she deserved."  
"And now she's killing gay people because her husband screwed a guy?"  
"Yes, Dean, perfectly summed up," Sam shakes his head at his brother.

I pull out my cell phone and scroll through a local online news paper, looking for deaths in the 80's and 90's. Thank Chuck they had someone, a poor intern probably, digitalize the old papers.  
"Ha!" I exclaim and show them my cell phone. "Mr. Stein died in '83 and his wife died three years later. Only couple I could find. I looked up their patient files in the hospital's intranet. He died of pneumonia and Mrs. Stein didn't survive an Appendectomy which is a pretty simple procedure, even back then, but she caught an infection. Oh, and guess what!"  
"What?" Sam and Dean say in unison, Castiel once again engrossed in knitting, his coffee untouched and probably cold by now.  
"There was another guy, mid 30's, just like the Steins. Guess what he died off. Exactly. A cold. In June '83.  
Cold, pneumonia, infection. Sound familiar?"

I smile and they do too. Always feels great to solve a case.

"Great. Let's go salt and burn her bones. Please tell me, she wasn't cremated?" Dean looks at me pleadingly.  
"Nope," I shake my head, "she's buried at the cemetery, right next to her husband."  
"Great," Dean winks at me, "good job, little one. Let's go back to the hotel and then, tonight, to the cemetery. I need a revenge in poker."  
Sam and I laugh and we all go back to the Impala. Dean calls her _Baby_ , I remember now. She was called his _one true love_ in one of the online forums I've read.

I kick his ass once again.  
Maybe I should feel bad, but, it's not exactly my fault that I can feel when someone's bluffing, right?  
And seeing Dean grumpy and Sam smiling is kind of worth the bad conscience.

At 1 am Dean wants us all to leave, but Sam speaks up before everyone gets up and to the car.  
"I, eh, I think, Amy should stay here."  
"Why?" Surprisingly I'm not the one who asked, but Dean.  
"Because," Sam looks at me, apologetically, "because AIDS really is a horrible death I do not wish to anyone, especially not to my niece."  
So much for not telling my father yet.  
"What do you mea-"  
I don't let Dean finish his question. "I know the risk, but she could just as easily infect one of you three. And, by the way, she seems to be at the hospital, not at the cemetery. So, no biggie, right?"  
"Amy," Sam says mildly. It makes me angry. That's the way you talk to a kid. I'm 18 and more importantly, I haven't been a kid for a long time. If I've ever really been one.  
"Oh, come on! I solved this case! I think I should get to be there when her bones are burnt!"  
"You know what I mean!" Sam is shouting too.  
"Yeah, I do. But if she wanted to infect me she could have done so in the hospital already! Hell, maybe she has and we just don't know yet. So, either way, I can come with you!"  
"Okay, stop!" Dean stands between his brother and his daughter and turns from one to the other, angry. "Everybody stop. Amy is right. And I'm not gonna turn into Dad and tell her what to do. The ghost is just as dangerous to her as it is to us."  
"That's just it, it isn't." Sam sounds as if he hates what he is saying.

"What?" The smaller Winchester looks at me and I just shrug. "Oh. Oh."  
Great.  
I bite down on my lip which hurts a lot because it's still sore from when I made it bleed two days ago.  
"Well, then there's no way you're coming. Sorry."  
And just like that he's out of the door, Sam right behind him.  
"We will be back soon," Castiel says before leaving too.

Just fucking perfect.  
I fall onto my bed and start crying.  
Dean reacted just the way I was afraid he would. Cold and...  
He wanted me to come with them, but not anymore, not when I'm...

I lie there for about an hour, not moving, silent tears streaming down my face before I start worrying.  
It's a simple salt and burn, they are the Winchesters and they have an angel helping them. They shouldn't be away for that long.  
Grabbing my phone and one of the keys, Sam left both, I walk in the direction of the cemetery. After a few steps, I start running.

God, I miss running. It was more fun in the woods back home than here on a road in the middle of the night, but still.  
It feels almost like what I think flying feels like.  
Back home I used to run a lot so it doesn't take me long to get to the cemetery and I'm not out of breath when I arrive.

I don't go around the last corner of the road though, rather staying behind some bushes, because I hear voices and the sounds of a fire.  
So they did burn her.  
Why haven't they left?

"-really think that?" Dean sounds upset.  
"Well, Dad certainly did, and you, well, we've never talked about this," Sam tries to calm his brother down.  
"I'm, I'm not, God, do I really have to defend myself for this? I didn't want her here. I don't want her in danger. But like I said, I'm not going to turn into Dad and tell people, tell my daughter, what to do and what not. So I was willing to let her come here with us, it was a simple salt and burn, as boring and UN-dangerous as it can get. But not when the ghost who has killed three people- that we know of!- is out to kill people like her!"  
" _People like her_? See, that's what I'm talking about!" Sam gets upset too. I don't know if I should step in or not, but even if I wanted to, I couldn't. My legs don't listen to me right now, my whole body doesn't.  
"That is **not** what I meant, Sam! Come on, you know me!" I manage to take a few steps so that I can see them, leaned against the hood of the Impala, Castiel standing in front of them, his head tilted to one side, listening.  
"She was in more danger than we were, it would have been stupid to let her come with us! I don't want her to get hurt. Sammy, she is 18 years old. 18 years that I wasn't there, I couldn't keep her safe. And now she's here and she's been with us for less than three days and already we found something that wants to kill her.  
Sammy, I don't want her to get hurt, I don't... I can't..." Dean stops. I think he's crying, but I'm not sure since I can't see him because I am crying.  
"Dean-," Sam doesn't say more. He just grabs Dean and hugs him.  
"I wasn't there for her and now... Now she's here, and she's gonna get hurt, Sammy, she's gonna-"  
"No! You hear me, Dean, she won't get hurt. I won't let that happen and neither will you or Cass. We'll keep her safe, okay?" Sam lets go of Dean and goes to the driver's seat. "Come on, let's go pick her up."

When they get into the car I try to say something, but I can't. So I just stand there, in the middle of the road.  
Sam slams the brakes when the car's light touches me.  
Slowly I stumble forward, just two or three steps and then I regain control of my body and run to the car that was headed in my direction. I open the door behind Dean and slide in on the back seat.  
" I... I was getting worried, so I... I came here."

No one says a word as we drive back to the motel.  
I open the door and we all go inside, everyone sitting at the same places as this morning.  
Dean leaves and comes back a few minutes later, an old green cooler in his hands. None of us spoke while he was gone.  
I can hear the bottles rattle against each other when Dean puts the cooler down next to the table and pulls out a beer, gives it to Sam, gets one for Castiel and another one for himself. He's about to close the lid again when I lean forward and pull one out for me.  
They stare at me.  
"What?"  
"You're 18. Not 21."  
"Yeah, I know. I've been drinking beer for more than four years now. Besides, I don't get drunk unless I drink like, three six-packs." I shrug and open the bottle.  
"Cass too. I've seen him drunk once, after he drank a whole liquor store," Sam laughs.  
"It was no pleasant experience," Castiel says and takes a sip from his bottle.  
Now Dean's laughing too and I have to smile. I know that both our eyes are red and swollen but I choose to ignore it. We completed a hunt, we get to drink some beer and be happy, no matter what else happened today.

I take a swig of my beer and flinch.  
"Too strong?" Dean is laughing.  
"No," I say, "but I guess it's true what they say. American beer is like having sex in a canoe."  
They look at me, confused.  
"Fucking close to water!" I laugh and take another swig. Seriously, they call that beer?  
"Hey! Don't insult my beer!" Dean tries to take my bottle away but I'm faster than him.  
"I'm sorry, but I grew up in _Germany_ , you know, where beer was _invented_!"  
Now they're laughing too, the problems of the day and everything that happened slowly fading into the background.

A few beers later Dean takes out the cards.  
"Really? You want me to kick your ass _again_?"  
"No," Dean shakes his head so hard he almost pours beer everywhere, "no, because this time, I'm drunk. So I'm a lot better. I am going to kick _your_ ass!"

We played poker until the sun rose again. Castiel had lost about two hours in and around seven, when it dawned, Sam gave up too so we stopped.  
Both Sam and Dean were exhausted from a night of drinking, the hunt and also all the emotions I could still sense in them, so they went to lie down for a while, Castiel thankfully following Dean into their room.  
When Sam falls asleep I pull out my textbooks and study a little. I really do want to go back to school so I can't lose whatever little I've learned in the few months I spent at university.

Just two hours later Dean and Castiel come back over and we pack our stuff and sit back into the car.  
This time Dean doesn't play the music as loud as when we drove from Kansas to Wisconsin because Sam is sleeping on the passenger's seat.  
Since we're not hunting anymore, I guess I can sleep a little too. I lean my head against the window, similar to how Sam is sitting in front of me.  
Slowly I look around in the car. The leather is old but well taken care off. There are some scratches in the frame on Castiel's side of the backseat and something crammed into the ashtray. Under Sam's seat is a carton box filled with even more cassette tapes than the ones in the front. One of them says _Dean's favorite Led Zeppelin songs_ and another one _Sam's stupid history podcasts_. I have to smile and turn my head to look outside.

The landscape flies by us. Somehow it looks weird because it's different than back home, but it also looks so right.  
And, anyway, what even is home anymore?  
I doubt I have one right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, a simple salt and burn that was just that:) I guess it does happen every now and then, huh?


	8. Supernatural

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A happy chapter! Just in case anyone needed it as much as I did:)

The ride back to the bunker is quiet, except for the music, once we've arrived we all grab our backpacks and go into our rooms, still, no one is saying anything.

I'm sitting on my bed, reading in an anatomy textbook. After a while, I look at my phone. It's two am. Seems like I just studied for six hours without even noticing.  
Suddenly my stomach growls and I decide to go to the kitchen and eat something.  
The halls look eerie, once again there is no sound, it's as if I was completely alone in the huge bunker. I look down the hallway, door after door after door. I've been here for two days before the Winchesters came home, at first I tried not to touch anything, then I looked into every room and found dozens of bedrooms, only two looked as if someone was using them regularly, another two seemed to belong to someone that wasn't over all that often and the rest seemed unused. It's kind of a waste, all that empty space.  
Quietly, trying not to wake up Sam and Dean, I make my way to the kitchen. The angel isn't sitting at the table this time. He either found another room to knit in or he... I don't know. As long as he's not in the same room as me, I'm happy.

I think back to my two days in the bunker a little more. After I looked at the rooms I got bored again, waiting for my father. So on the second day I spent in the bunker, I washed and ironed every piece of clothing I could find. Then I cleaned. Then I walked to Lebanon and went grocery shopping. Then I went again because I couldn't carry nearly enough to fill the empty shelves in the back of the kitchen. Then I allowed myself to sit in the library, just taking in all the books and wisdom. Then I made all the beds that looked a little crumbled. Then I cleaned again. Then I studied a little. Then I found the sound system and started baking.  
That seems so far away now.  
I found my father, and he's not as big a dick as I thought he was. I found an uncle, too.  
I even told them a little about me.  
They told me very little about them, but I got a lot of whole eBooks I could read to find out something about them.  
But I won't.  
Two of my internet friends sent me their summaries of the books. One of them seemed to have a little crush on Sam and claimed to be in the books herself. Yeah, sure.  
The other spoke really fondly of the Winchesters. I think, I really believed her when she said that she knew them. An American hunter I know even told me that she really was a huntress. But when I told her that I was Dean's daughter, she never texted back. That was more than a year ago.  
I grab some bread and peanut butter and sit down at the table someone cleaned up after we all just left our stuff on it before heading out for the case.

I can't help but think about the _Supernatural_ books. So I go back to my room, sit down at my desk and plug in my Computer. I think I might have to read up on the _Supernatural_ books. When I first got the summaries from two users I had met in an online chat room, I had been pretty tired after a hunt that almost went wrong. I stayed up reading while Maya went to sleep. Since I can't even remember reading about Castiel, I guess I didn't catch half of what I should have when I read the pages in my sleep deprived state.

It's half past three when I go to the entrance room and up to the huge door. I feel like I need to get out of here, just for a few minutes. Chuck gave me a key, so I can let myself in once I want to get back inside.  
Outside it's a little chilly, especially because I'm just wearing my _exe_ ** _cute_** top and some sweatpants. But there are so many stars. And I can hear an owl somewhere off in the distance. I just stand there, at the edge of the road, staring into the sky.  
It's beautiful.

I sat down on the ground a while ago, my behind is already starting to hurt from the hard concrete I'm sitting on when suddenly the door behind me opens with a loud crash.  
I'm standing in a heartbeat, barely stopping my eyes from changing, in my hand the knife that's usually strapped to my thigh.  
It's Dean.  
"God, you scared me!"  
"What the fuck are you doing out here?" He's yelling.  
"I wanted to get some fresh air and-"  
"You can't just leave like that!"  
I feel my eyebrows shooting up. "So, what, I'm a prisoner now?"  
"What? No!"  
"Then what's your fucking problem?"  
"You were just gone! You can't just leave like that!"  
"What?!"  
He seems to cool off and runs a hand through his hair. "I'm... Sorry." His voice is almost inaudible.

"What is it?" I ask, trying to be as soft as I can. I think something is bothering him, now that he isn't screaming at me anymore, he looks lost and scared. It seems as if he's not used to being this emotional, when he speaks he sounds embarrassed of what he's saying.  
"I heard the door close and woke up and when I came looking for you, you were gone and I thought... I thought something had happened to you. I kinda freaked out there, sorry."  
I don't know what to say. I thought this was their home, a place they felt safe in. Apparently not.  
"Should we go back inside? Get a tea or something?" I smile at Dean and he nods. Together we go to the door and he's about to knock on the door- seriously? As if anyone is gonna hear that- when I get my key out of my frowns.  
"Where'd you get that?"  
"Chuck?"  
His eyes go wide and he stares at me until I turn away to open the door and walk inside, him following me.  
"You know Go- eh- Chuck?"  
"What?" Sam is standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at us. Just like Dean, he's only wearing a pair of sweatpants. They have the same tattoo I have, the one that is supposed to shield you from demonic possession. Although mine isn't as big as a plate and on my chest.  
"Eh, yeah, he helped me find you guys. Or well, he told me where you lived and gave me a key." I shrug. So what, I know God, no big deal right?

"A key?" They ask in unison.  
"I thought there was only one key," Sam says.  
"Yeah, _sure_. A bunker for a few dozen people and **one** key. Real smart move! Plus, I guess, God doesn't have to have a key to give one away. If he wants to give a key away, he just **has** one." I shrug.  
The boys simply nod and Sam says "We have one for the garage too."  
Dean and I go join Sam downstairs.

"So, tea?" They nod and we go to the kitchen together.

Once we're all sitting there, cups of steaming tea in front of us, Dean speaks up.  
"Sorry again, about freaking out like that."  
"It's okay," I wave it off.  
"No, it's not. You're not a kid."  
"No. No, I'm not."  
"It's just... We've lost so many people and you were just..."  
"Gone," I finish his sentence. "Sorry. I get that. Losing people. I mean, we're hunters right?"  
They both nod sadly.  
"I've lost some friends too. And Maya."  
"Yeah, hunting and death are kind of... inseparable," Sam says.

"Unless you just kill Death!" Dean laughs.  
"Wait, what?" I look at them, my surprise probably very visible on my face.  
Now both of them are laughing.  
"Dean killed Death. Like, capital D."  
"You did what?" Okay, I think I'm out. Death. _The Death_. And Dean killed him?  
"He was gonna make me kill Sammy and then kill me!"  
"Well, at least you wouldn't be dead, you'd just be a demon again!"  
"Again?!" My question goes ignored while Sam and Dean try to one-up each other.  
"Yeah, you think that's better than dying?"  
"Well, I've never been a Demon, but I was possessed by one! And I've had worse!"  
"That's something else entirely!"  
"I've also been possessed by an angel!"  
"But being a Demon is worse!"  
"I've been possessed by **Satan**! _That_ sucks, you know?!"

" **STOP!** "

They turn their heads to me, shocked at how loud I've gotten.  
"Sorry, but you were starting to kind of freak me out there."  
"Sorry," they say, in the exact same tone and with the exact same look on their faces. I'd laugh if I wasn't so caught off guard by what they've been implying.

"We've been through some... eh, _stuff_ ," Sam says, as if _stuff_ is the perfect word to describe all the things they just hinted at.

"Hey, Sammy, remember when we just used to die?" Dean laughs again.  
"Dean. I died normally, like once. And then you went to hell. We never _just died_."  
"So, you guys really have come back from the dead before?" I do believe that the _Supernatural_ books are true and all, but that is just... So un-normal, even for a hunter.  
"Yeah, a couple of times," Dean shrugs, as if it's no big deal.  
"Like, what, six times for me?"  
"Yeah, and eight for me?"  
"More like two hundred."  
Dean looks confused.  
"Mystery spot," I whisper.  
Sam looks at me, surprised that I know more about his brother's many deaths than he himself. "How do you know about that?"

"Eh, do you guys know the _Supernatural_ books by Carver Edlund?"  
"Oh, God, no!" Dean groans.  
"No, no! I didn't read any of them!" They seem to be happy about that.  
"Actually, Chuck wrote them," Sam says.  
I nod. "I know. They are how I found out that you weren't a murderer and got shot by the police."  
Dean looks confused.  
"The shapeshifter!" Sam exclaims.

"Yeah. I googled your name a while back and found a report of some people getting tortured and killed by you. I was about to just forget your name when I found another report, from a few years later. You were seen and recorded shooting up a diner and a bank." Slowly I take a sip of my tea. Chamomile. We used to get that when we were sick as kids. The smell and taste bring back a lot of nostalgic feelings and for just a brief moment I feel safe and almost... at peace? At home? I don't really know.  
"That wasn't me! That wasn't us!"  
"I know, I know. Shapeshifter and then Leviathans. They got a few of my friends into trouble, too. What? You thought they were just here in the US?"  
Sam looks down at the table. "No, probably not."  
"I never even thought about that," Dean says.  
"Yeah, Maya and I got jumped by one of them, looking like Heiner, the hunter that helped us. Turns out, he killed him and then tried to get to us looking like him."

Silence.

I clear my throat. "Well, anyway, I saw the name Sam Winchester mentioned in the articles and googled you guys together. And found the books. And some people that claimed to know you guys, and I looked into the FBI's register and found both of you on the very top of their most wanted list. Several times."  
Dean raises his hand and yells "High five!" at Sam who just gives him a bitch face.  
"Oh, come on Sammy! Just say that you're proud of us, because I know that you are!" Dean teases his brother.  
Sam just shakes his head and turns his attention back to me after taking a sip of his tea. I do the same while he speaks. "So, if you didn't read the books, how did you know about what happened to us?"  
"Well, I _did_ try to read them, but I couldn't even finish the first chapter. You know, knowing that it was all real and... about my family," I shrug. "I asked someone online to send me their summaries of the books. Got two from people claiming to know you."

"Wait, what?" Dean looks surprised while Sam seems to know where this is going.  
I pull out my cell phone and look up the summaries I was sent.  
"Well, one of them calls herself BeckyWinchester176 and-"  
Sam's groan cuts off my sentence.  
"Wait, you really know here?"  
"Superfan99?" Dean laughs. "Sure we know her. She's got a thing for Sammy here."  
"Really? I hadn't noticed." They laugh at my sarcastic tone.  
"Well, she dumped me for Chuck."  
I have to laugh. "You got dumped for God?"  
"Yeah, and then we got married in Vegas."  
" **You what?!** " I all but shout.  
"She drugged me with a love potion and we got married. Haven't seen her in years though," Sam shrugs as if it wasn't a big deal. Their lives are weird. And coming from me, the angel-human hybrid that was almost killed by angelic assassins at five years old and then lived in the woods for almost a decade, that means something.  
"Last thing we heard about her, she uploaded the _Supernatural_ eBooks."

"Oh, Honey, she didn't just upload those," I say, looking at Dean.  
Both of them turn to me.  
"Becky might be the biggest Wincest-shipper I have ever met."  
"Win-what now?" They say at the exact same time. This Becky girl had mentioned that the Winchesters tended to do that.  
"Sam and Dean. Winchester. Incest. Wincest," I shudder.  
"Oh no!" They say in unison again.  
"Well, that's even worse than that Destiel-crap those girls were into," Dean says.  
"You know about Destiel?" My head snaps back and forth between them, looking for an answer in their eyes.  
"Yeah, we do," Sam's smirk almost makes me crack up again, until I see Dean's face of death, "But I still think it should be Deastiel!"  
"Shut your face, Sam!"  
They sound as if they've had this conversation before.

"Sooooo, you guys know about the other ships too?"  
They look mortified.  
"Well, first of all, there would be Sabriel," I say matter-of-factly.  
Sam looks shocked. "You mean as in-"  
"Sammy and Gabriel?" Dean laughs. "I like it!"  
"Okay, nope. This conversation is over." Sam gets up, grabs all our cups and puts them in the sink.

"Hey, **Samsquatch** , come back!" Dean yells over at Sam.  
Sam just shows his brother the finger and leaves.

Dean and I sit there for a couple of minutes before he speaks up. "Hey, eh, thank you."  
"For what?" I smile at him. The smell of chamomile still fills the kitchen and I'm slowly getting a little sleepy, all adding up to me feeling even calmer than before.  
"We normally don't talk a lot about... Well, we try to avoid chick-flick-moments."  
I roll my eyes. Men.  
"But, you being here makes that somehow easier. I don't know..."  
"Maybe because I am a chick?"  
He laughs and we get up.  
"Good night, Dean."  
He smiles and waves lamely as he walks down the corridor to his room while I turn back to the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys:)  
> I'm not a hundred percent sure that Sam and Dean are totally in character here, but -like I said- I just needed a happy chapter, so I wrote one. Hope you guys like it anyway.


	9. Have You Ever Seen The Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry for being so bad at posting... University is pretty time consuming at the moment...  
> But have fun with this new chapter:) From now on I'll probably post shorter chapters every now and then:)  
> Plus: Have you guys seen the new episode? *.* I'm so excited for Wayward Sisters:)

Maya hated the way I deal with problems.

Because I don't. I keep ignoring them, hoping they'll go away or at least shrink if I don't give them any attention.  
Unfortunately they rarely do. Still, I try.

After another day in the Bunker with Sam and Dean- the angel was nowhere to be found, according to Sam something that happens quite a lot- I now know where I get that from.

After the pretty open conversation last night neither of them tried to start a conversation about anything serious. And I would rather die than bring up anything myself.  
So, the day is spent playing cards, eating toast since nobody wants to cook, and drinking beer once it turns six in the evening.

Around seven, both Sam and Dean get up to take a shower, which I did this morning, so I offer to clean the table we sat at in the library.  
I take the last two unopened bottles back to the fridge in the kitchen. I wipe away the crumbs next to the toaster and put the bag of bread back to the others. The peanut butter that's still standing on the table goes back on the rack where it belongs and the bottled water Sam took out of the pantry is also returned to its rightful place.  
Everything looks clean and neat, just the way I like it.

I'm on my way back to the library when I hear a door close.  
It can't be Sam or Dean, they just got into the shower, and Sam said Castiel probably won't come home for a couple of days.  
But someone just came in through the garage. Which is supposed to be locked.  
I pull the small gun that's still strapped to my leg out of its holster and open the safety. Slowly I walk up to the end of the hall, taking a peak around the corner to where the hallway from the garage to the entrance room ends. I was right, it's not one of the bunker's inhabitants, in fact it's not even a man.  
A blond woman, her hair barely reaches her shoulders, in a beige jacket and a blue flannel underneath enters the room with the staircase coming down from the front door and puts down her duffel bag, stretching her neck and back.  
Without making a noise I walk towards her, still hidden by the wall that seperates the library from the entrance room. She bends down to get something from her bag and that's when I yell "Stop right there!"  
But she's fast. So we stand there, me a little higher than her, on the library level, both with guns in our hands.

"Who are you?" We yell in unison.  
"What are you doing here?" Still we're speaking at the same time. Even when I shout " **DEAN**!" she does too. Does she know them? Who the hell is she? How'd she get in?  
"What's going-" Dean storms in, dripping wet, a towel wrapped around his waist, I can only see him in the corner of my eye, I'm still looking at the blonde intruder. "Wow, put the damn guns down, what the fuck is wrong with you?"  
The blonde doesn't lower her weapon so neither do I.  
"Who is she!" Neither of us meant it as a question. I just want Dean to see that someone broke into his home and is threatening us with a gun!  
"Guys, get your guns down!" Sam is behind Dean, soaked as well and also clad in a towel.  
"Can this family just stop pointing guns at each other?!" Dean gestures around, between me and the woman.  
" **Family**?!" Could she fucking stop saying everything I'm saying? It's getting kinda annoying.  
"Mary Amy, Amy Mary." We both turn to look at him. So Her name's Mary. She's still pointing her gun at me, so I'm not gonna take mine down.  
"Ehm..." Dean's voice dies and he clears his throat. "This is my daughter, Mom."  
"Daughter?!"  
"Mom?!"

"I thought you were dead."  
We're sitting at the same table the same way as when Sam and Dean came home to find me. Sam and Dean had left for a few minutes to get changed while the blonde and I were staring each other down. Where Castiel sat last time, there's now a woman that looks about as old as Sam and Dean, claiming to be their mother.  
My grandmother.  
What a wild concept.  
Mary Winchester seems slightly taken aback by my blatant comment but does not react to it in any way, she simply keeps looking at me.

Dean has his head buried in his hands and sighs loudly. "Okay, I guess we got some things to talk about?"  
"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock!" Sam smirks while Dean shoots me a look that tells me to shut up.  
I shrug and point at Dean, waving over to his mother, "Okay, Dean, go ahead."  
"Well," Dean clears his throat, "Okay, Mom, this is Amy-" Mary interrupts her son: "Yes, you already said that."  
Dean seems to shrink a little under her gaze and clears his throat again. "Amy came here, when? Four days ago?" Sam and I nod, it really has been four days. "She grew up in Germany and is a hunter herself." He seems to have trouble finding something else to say. Well, he doesn't really know all that much about me, and what does he want to tell his mother?  
That I'm half angel or that I had a girlfriend who got killed less than a year ago?

Suddenly I ask myself if Mary is the one. One of Sam and Dean's parents must have had an angelic ancestor right? Was it Mary? I think I kind of want it to be Mary. At least she's not the one who hid my existence from her son.  
So I look down and my hair falls in front of my face, since I left it open today, which I usually never do. Long open hair gets in the way when you need to hunt, or fight or defend yourself and you don't always have the time to put it in a braid or an up-do when you get jumped on a regular day. So I have mine in two Dutch braids most of the time. Mary has apparently opted for a shorter cut, same difference.  
Once I'm sure that Mary and the boys can't clearly see my face through the veil of red hair, I close my eyes and open them again. Now I can see three souls sitting across from me. Two with an angelic glow and one normal human soul. Well, darker than your average human soul and somehow it doesn't really fit the person it belongs to, but human nonetheless.  
So John was the one with Angel Grace.  
I close my eyes again and once they're back to normal I push my hair back behind my ears and look up at the others. Dean is still looking down at the table and Mary looks back and forth between him and me, while Sam seems to know what I did. He shoots me a look, raising an eyebrow and I subtly shake my head to which he gives me a small nod.

Dean keeps talking, about nothing, more or less. He tells me how Amara brought his mother back and I nod when he tries to explain who The Darkness is. I mean, I met her myself, the bitch tried to kill me, before Chuck stopped her.  
"When... **Where** did you meet Chuck and Amara?" Sam sounds as if he'd been dying to ask that question for a while.  
"Well," I begin telling the story of how I met God and his sister, "I came to the US looking for you, Dean, and couldn't find you so I prayed. I'm usually not the praying type anymore, I mean I prayed a lot when I was a kid, but you know what I think of angels, so... I, uh, poured my _soul_ ," I give Sam and Dean a suggestive look, willing them to understand that I used my freaky angel powers or whatever to enhance my prayers, "and went to sleep. Next thing I know, I wake up in a bar. It was empty except for a man and a woman on the small stage in one corner. He was playing the guitar and she was singing. An old song, _Have You Ever Seen The Rain_ it's called, I think. Then they introduced themselves and, well, after a while Chuck told me where you were. He zapped me right in front of the bunker, which was a great thing since I hate flying and I have no clue how else I would have gotten from California to here, I mean there are barely any railroads and trains here, at least compared to Germany, and I've heard of the Greyhound bus thingies, but that would have probably been a real pain in the ass, to get halfway across the continent and why is the US even this fucking big, it doesn't make sense and-"  
Thankfully Sam cuts in by loudly clearing his throat.  
"Sorry," I look down at the table, "I ramble when I get nervous." When I look up Mary seems to be almost smiling at me.

"Dean, why didn't you take care of her?" Despite her almost-smile, Mary's voice is controlled unemotional when she turns to her older son.  
"I... I didn't know about her, or I would have!" He's trying to defend himself. The Winchesters' relationship here is weird. Sam and Dean are so in sync with each other, so familiar with the other's mannerisms and behaviours, but when you through Mary into the mix, the whole balance gets tipped off.  
"Didn't her mother tell you she was pregnant?" The oldest Winchester, although I guess Dean is technically older, seems to be getting angry.  
"She did. At least she tried to," I don't even know why I'm defending her. I mean, she left me but she did try to tell Dean she was pregnant. Him not knowing about me is not my mother's fault.  
"We're pretty sure Dad found the letter she wrote me and didn't tell me."  
Mary doesn't show any kind of reaction to her son's answer.  
"He transferred some money and..." my father's voice dies down and he looks back down at the table. Somehow that's where all of us are looking most of the time, as if the answers to all our questions are written down there.  
"He... John would never!"  
"Mom, you didn't know him after... You know. He changed." Sam shakes his head.  
"A hunter had contacted us around the same time with some intel, Dad was pretty sure we'd find the thing that killed you very soon, so, I think, he couldn't loose me as a help..."

Both Sam and Dean look at their mother, scared of her reaction. I can't think of anything to say.  
"I don't even know where he got all the money from that he sent you," Dean laughs, "It's not like we had any to spare."  
"I do," Sam says. He only continues after his brother shoots him a look. "He said he spent it on ammo!" Sam is laughing.  
"What?" Apparently I'm not the only one who can speak in unison with Mary Winchester.  
"Our college funds! When we met him after you got me from Stanford, he told me he'd started college funds when we were younger. He said he'd spent the money on ammunition, but I guess he sent it to you. That's the only thing I can think of. I mean, we started the credit card scams in '99, right?"  
Dean nods, "So you think that's what he sent her?"  
Sam utters a sound of agreement while Mary remains still.

"Wait! Hey, Amy, is Mom the one who-" I interject with a determined "No. I already checked."  
"What am I not?"  
I take a deep breath. "The descendant of an angel."  
"What?"  
"Apparently one of your husband's ancestors was a Nephilim, as well as one of my mother's. So now I can do cool stuff like this," I do the whole close-eyes-open-glowing-eyes-thing because it's easier than just changing my eyes and Mary gasps. "Yeah... Plus I can see people's souls. And sometimes their emotions. Or when they're lying. Comes in handy when playing, say, poker."  
When Dean yells out "Oh, come on!" I have to smile and Sam chuckles a little bit.  
Mary seems keen on showing as few reactions to anything we're saying as possible and once again remains silent.  
I shift my eyes back when Sam appears to have an idea.

"Hey, that actually makes sense! The angels wanted you to be Michael's vessel when Dean wouldn't say yes, right? And Michael had already possessed Dad back in 1982 when we travelled back in time. They said it was a blood thing that made all of us such good vessels, right?"

Dean nods and I add, "Plus, Adam worked too, right?"  
Sam joins Dean's nodding and Mary asks, "Who is Adam?"  
Silence falls over us once again, but this one feels really damn awkward.  
"Oh. Oh shit. Sorry!" I try to apologize but one look from Dean shuts me down.

"Adam..." Dean takes a deep breath, bracing himself, and continues. "Adam was our half brother."  
Mary gulps audibly. "I see. What happened to him?"  
"Well, Dad tried to keep him out of the Life, but some ghouls killed him and his mother."  
Dean continues the story Sam began to tell. "When I refused to be possessed by Michael they brought him back to life and made him say Yes."  
The story telling duties fall back to Sam: "And when I said Yes to Lucifer I fought him, or well Lucifer fought him, and then I somehow got a hold of Lucifer and jumped into the cage and dragged Adam and Michael with me."  
Mary nods slowly. "And then when Castiel brought you back he brought him back too?"  
Okay, now the atmosphere is getting really awkward.  
"Well, actually, no, not exactly..."  
"Oh God, boys, please don't tell me you left your brother in Hell!"  
Both brothers look at their mother, seemingly ashamed.

"No, they didn't." They all turn their heads to me.  
"What? No, we never got his soul out of there. Death would only bring back one soul, he made me choose and I chose Sammy!"  
"Adam was never in the cage to begin with!"  
"I dragged him down there with me!"  
"His body, but not his soul!" They look at me, doubtful but hoping that I'm right. "Castiel molotoved Michael on the battlefield, right? And then Michael rebuild Adam. But only his body. Adam had already given his consent, so Michael didn't need his soul anymore. So, when Castiel threw the Holy Fire on Adam, it killed him and his soul went to heaven."  
Their looks are still full of doubts. "Come on guys, did you not read the god damn books?"

Well, that was one weird family meeting.  
I left and went to the kitchen to make some dinner - have I mentioned yet that I love that huge amazing kitchen of theirs?- while the three of them kept talking about Adam. It's almost midnight when I come back with some pasta and we sit down at the table eating pretty much in silence.  
Once we're finished they all go back to their rooms while I stay in the library.

After a while I walk up to the main door, opening it carefully to not wake Dean again and just look outside. It's raining.  
There's this smell, when it's been warm all day and the summer rain hits the concrete the sun has heated up during the day. It's one of the best smells there are, in my opinion. So I take a deep breath and then I just listen to the rain drops falling on the ground. I think I can hear a pattern in the gentle splashes.  
After closing the door without making a noise I walk down the stairs humming.

_Have you ever seen the rain, coming down on a sunny day?_


	10. Unsteady

The next morning, when I wake up from my two hours of sleep, Mary is gone. She's not in her room or the library or the garage. There's no note, no explanation, nothing. She's just gone.  
Dean breaks a chair in the library when he finds out. The frustration is written all over his face and I can sense it in his soul too.  
I just don't understand why Mary would leave. She just got back from the dead and her sons want to get to know her, want her to get to know them, be there for them. Of course they do, they grew up without her and I doubt even Dean can remember much about her since he was only four years old when she died.  
But she just leaves.  
And I have no idea how to help them, what to say or do to make it better.

After a few hours of silence, Dean's phone rings.  
While answering he leaves the room and Sam and I stay behind, sitting in our chairs, staring at the wall.

"That was Cass," Dean practically throws his phone on the table. "He's back with Crowley, looking for-"  
I interrupt him: "Crowley? As in... _Crowley_? The king of Hell?"  
"Yes, well, no, not anymore," Dean sits back down at the table across from me. "Lucifer took over after we dealt with Amara."  
" **Lucifer**?! I thought he was in the Cage in Hell!"  
"No, he... we... He's out." Sam looks tired.  
"You let him out _again_?"  
"Not me!" Sam's voice has taken on a defensive tone, "Cass."  
I bury my head in my hands. "Seriously?"  
"He thought we needed Lucifer to defeat Amara," Dean sighs, "not that that worked."

"Okay, so now he's back out there?" Both of them nod. "And Castiel, an angel, is looking for him with the help of a demon?"  
"Yeah I guess." Dean smirks. "I wish I could see that."

"Should we go help them?" Sam wants to get out of here. He wants to do something, anything. Dean looks as if he feels the same, but he shakes his head. "Nah, Cass said they got it."

Dean gets back up and walks towards the kitchen. "Anybody want something to eat? A beer?"  
"Dude, it's ten am! We just had breakfast!"  
"It's five o'clock somewhere!" Dean yells and his voice echoes through the bunker.  
Sam shakes his head. He's just as hurt as Dean, I can see it in his eyes. He's just way better at disguising it.

When I wake up three days later, I realize how much my palms hurt from digging my finger nails into them. I've always clenched my fists as tightly as I could when I was in a situation that made me feel uneasy.  
Being in the bunker might feel safe and okay for now, but I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's either going to be Sam and Dean, turning out to be as bad as I thought they were for my whole life, or it'll be me, fucking it all up. The latter is far more likely.  
The Winchesters and I have lived together for more than a week now, and it's been okay, but I feel like I just don't fit in. The last few days since Mary left, I especially felt that way.  
Dean's drunk by noon, every single day. Sam barely leaves his room. Castiel calls every now and then.  
The brothers try to make me feel better, I know. We play poker or any other card game every now and then. When I cook they leave their rooms and sit down with me. Sam once got up just to help me prepare lunch.  
But the bunker starts to feel like aa cage. I haven't left it in days since it just feels wrong.

On the next morning I go outside. The sun shines and there's a gentle breeze, it's a little chilly and I'm glad I put on a flannel before leaving. I just sit down on a bolder next to the road. The stone is warm from the sun and I can look at the field on the opposite side of the road.  
In the trees behind the field there's a bunch of birds. They keep switching between two trees. Every few minutes or so, one bird flies over to the other tree and all the others follow. They seem to be unable to choose which tree is more comfortable. as if they had to choose. As if they had only these two trees to choose from.

Sam finds me after an hour or so. I wasn't expecting either of them to come out here since Sam hasn't left his room today and Dean's sitting in the kitchen with half a bottle of Scotch he seems determined to finish before noon.  
But San sits down next to, smiles at me, and looks out over the field too.  
"You okay?" His voice is low and calm, as if he's trying not to disturb the peace.  
"Yeah, I guess," I shrug. "It's just, I lived in the woods for years now. Being inside, let alone underground, for so long just feels weird."  
It takes Sam a while to respond. He nods as he does: "I get that. When we first moved in here I felt weird too. Except from Stanford I never really had a home. It was all just motel room after motel room and nights in the Impala. And Stanford was only temporary too, even if Dean hadn't shown up, I still would have left eventually. I just never thought we'd stay at the bunker for long."  
"But this is your home now. And it's a good one. I mean, it's huge, you guys have an amazing library and so much space and stuff down there. And it's really safe too, right? I mean, this is the perfect spot for hunters. Even though it was built by Men of Letters..."  
"You don't like the Men of Letters? I mean, I'm not really a big fan either, but have you met them before?"

I can't answer. Not for a while. I keep staring at the birds, changing trees once, twice, three times. My fingernails dig into my palms and I feel like I can't breathe. I've gotten so good at pushing it all away, far far away. But now it comes rushing back to me.  
The fire, the smoke, the rain.  
The British men talking. And the one woman, a blonde, bossing all of them around.

"Ehm", I clear my throat but when I try to speak again it still feels as if I have lump in my throat. "Just... Hope they leave the US soon."


	11. Work

It's been more than a week since Mary left when Sam's phone rings.  
We're all sitting in the library, Dean is sober for once and Sam seems to have eaten more than just a few bites today. I guess they're doing a little better. Or maybe they've just gotten used to the situation. We've been looking for cases for a while now, for traces of Lucifer, anything. But there's nothing. Not a single thing.  
Sam is sitting at one of the tables at the center of the room, reading an ancient looking lore book, a steaming mug of tea in front of him. His brother is lounging in one of the old leather armchairs, his phone in hand. I don't know what he's doing, but he keeps smiling every now and then, so he must be okay.  
Cass usually calls Dean so we all look up when Sam's ringtone sounds. He shrugs after Dean throws him a questioning look and just turns his phone in our direction. The number is blocked.

Sam answers the phone and puts it on speaker. "Sam Winchester?"  
A man with a deep raspy voice answers: "Hey, it's me, Chester. You got a sec, Winchester?"  
Apparently, Sam knows exactly, who Chester is, and Dean mouths _Hunter_ at me. "Sure, can I help you with something?"  
"Yeah, sorry for calling you, but you boys probably got more experience than any other hunter in the US, so I thought I'd just ran this one by you." Dean and Sam both hum in agreement and I roll my eyes at them. "I found a weird mark and I got no clue what it is. Think you can help me?"  
I get up from the armchair I was reading in and pick up my laptop from one of the smaller tables close to the wall. Dean has gotten up too and we sit down on either side of Sam.  
"Sure thing, Chester. Can you just send me a picture and I'll have a look?"  
"Thanks, Sam. Will do. Just call me when you got something, a'right?"

Neither Sam nor Dean recognize the mark on the picture Chester sent, but somehow it seems familiar to me.  
I grab Sam's phone and take a closer look. "You know it?" Dean sounds as if he doesn't believe I do.  
"Well, I spent a lot of time in the libraries back home. You know, besides Maya I didn't really have a lot of friends, and if you barely sleep, you got a _looot_ of time on your hands. Especially at night." I turn on my tablet and open an app I got made for me by a computer studies student that had a crush on me. "So I went to the library and cataloged every sign and symbol I could find. After I broke into the library, because it closes at midnight-" I pause and shake my head. Rambling. Again.

Once the app is fully loaded I draw the mark from Chester's picture into the panel that pops up. While the app searches for a similar mark I look back up at the brothers. "This is practically the only reason I stole this thing instead of a normal laptop. Every hunter can add marks they find to the cataloge, it's a lot easier than looking them all up in books when you need to find them fast. There's also an app for hunters that's practically a huge bestiary everybody can add to."  
"Didn't Charlie have one of those too?" Sam nods and answers: "Yes. I thought she made it though."  
"I talked to the person who made it. She sent me her summary of the _Supernatural_ books too, just like Becky. Oh and she said, she met you guys. And then she stopped responding to my messages... I think her handle was QueenOfMoons or something like that."  
Dean chuckles a bit. "Yeah, that's Charlie alright."  
"You really know her?"  
"We did. She... was like family."  
"Sorry." There's a soft _bing_ coming from my laptop. It found a match.

The picture that popped up looks exactly like what Chester sent. "Okay, it says here that this is an Aztec symbol. It stands for the Ahuizotl, a monster that lives in rivers," I scroll down on the information page from the online bestiary that is linked with the symbol app. I love technology. "And apparently it pulls you underwater, eats your... eyeballs and teeth? And then drowns you?"  
Dean has that disbelieving look again and Sam says, he's never heard of an Ahuizotl before.  
"Oh, and it pulls you down with a monkey like hand it has at the end of its tail?"

Even though none of us really believed that the weird Aztec monster was what Chester was looking for, a quick call confirms that the thing's killing technique is consistent with what the hunter could find in New Mexico.  
So we all go back to what we were doing earlier. But now it feels weird. We should be doing something. Not just sitting around.  
I check the internet again and again, looking for weird deaths or incidents but nothing comes up.

When Sam goes to the kitchen to get himself another tea I speak up.  
"Dean? Can I ask you something?"  
He nods.  
"About Charlie?"  
After taking a deep breath he nods again, puts his phone away and turns to me.  
He has deep shadows under his eyes and should probably shave, he looks really tired.  
"You said she was like family. Was she a hunter, or were you... You know?"  
A weak smile spreads over his face. "Charlie was an IT girl, until she met us. She helped us take down the Leviathans. She died trying to help me when I had the Mark of Cain. Oh, and she was gay."  
"God, I feel like an asshole, I got so angry when she just stopped messaging me back. I'm so sorry for your loss."  
There it is again, that tired, almost sad smile. But it's better than all the resignation he has shown the last couple of days, with all the anger hidden under it.  
"You'd like Charlie. She was a huge nerd, she was amazing."

Before I can answer, Sam comes back in, without tea, but he looks excited.  
"I found us a case."


	12. Praying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 12 and the following ones line up with the 4th episode of season 12 :)

We were on the road within ten minutes, each of us anxious to get out of the bunker. Sam wanted to drive since Dean had been drinking this morning, but he wouldn't let him. So now, Sam is riding shotgun, looking a bit worried, with his laptop on his knees, reading the newspaper article that had sparked his attention out loud to me and Dean.  
In a small town in Iowa a woman died a few days ago. She, Olivia, was working for Child Protective services, walked into a church, bleeding from her feet and back. According to the newspaper, witnesses saw her being whipped by something invisible. Yesterday, a grocery stock boy died the exact same way at the store he worked at.

It takes us about seven hours to get there, Sam fell asleep again and I read a bit. When we arrive at a motel on the edge of the town, Dean gets us a room and we settle down around the table.  
The motel room's interior is surprisingly modern and looks very clean. I've never been in a motel or hotel or anything of the sorts before I came to the US, but after the last motel we stayed in, this one is a pleasant surprise.  
"Okay," Sam starts the conversation, "we should gather some more information."  
Dean has a bottle of beer in his hands and simply nods.  
"We should probably find out, what connects the victims." Both Winchesters nod. "Maybe we can split up? Somebody should find something out about the woman and someone else something about that boy, then we can cross check the information and see what connects them?"  
"You really wanna split up?" Dean doesn't look as if he thinks it's a good idea.  
"Well, it would be a lot faster. I could look stuff up on the internet, and you guys go talk to some people?"  
Sam nods and Dean scoffs, "Well, as long as you don't get yourself killed."  
Is he serious? "I used to hunt on my own. For years now. Maya hated hunting; I think I can take care of myself, especially when I'm only sitting in a motel room on my laptop."

The two of them went to Olivia's work place, so I start with the other victim.  
The local grocery store even has a website, which makes research so much easier. Online, you can order groceries, which will be delivered to your house the next day or on a certain day you can pick. There's even a map showing the delivery trucks route through the town and to houses surrounding it. After a little bit of searching, I find an older version of the map with names of the delivery drivers. According to the website, the map has been updated just this morning, and there's only one change: a name missing from one of the four routes through town.  
I open Google Maps and write down the street names and house numbers on that one route. Then I try to find out as many names as possible, of everyone living near the route, the firms which have buildings there, and try to find out, who is working at those firms.  
After barely two hours I have a pretty impressive list of names. Sam and Dean haven't checked in yet, so I look up Child Protective Services, which is not one of the firms or organization close to the route the second victim drove every day.  
I find two Olivias working in the local office and check their Facebook pages. One is filled with hundreds of condolence wishes. Thank God for social media.  
But without committing a crime, I can't find out anything more about Olivia, so I lie down in one of the beds, determined to sleep until Sam and Dean come back. If I sleep now, I'll be able to easily stay up the next couple of days which can't hurt.

When I wake up, both of them are in the motel room, sleeping. Sam is lying in the other bed, on his stomach with his arms tugged under his pillow. And Dean is basically sitting in the armchair in the far corner of the room. If his eyes weren't closed he'd have perfect view of the whole room with both beds, Sam's closer to him, the little table next to the door into the bathroom and my bed close to the door. Before he fell asleep and his head fell down to one side, now resting on his shoulder - he'll most likely wake up with one hell of a neck pain- he was probably looking straight at the door.  
In situations like this it's almost comical, how much the Life they grew up in is engrained in their every move and decision. Especially with Dean.

Slowly, I get up, trying to be as quiet as somehow possible since I don't want to wake them.  
The light falling throw the window next to the door is just enough for someone like me to see. I walk over to the table and see a piece of paper lying next to my tablet.  
" _We may have found something, we'll tell you in the morning, you looked like you could use some sleep_ ", it says. Somehow the hand writing looks like it's Sam's, though I can't be sure.

I take a book out of my backpack and sit back down on the bed I slept in, where there's a patch of light from a street lamp outside. Although I know I should probably be moving on to physiology soon I start reading the chapter about the heart in my anatomy book. Somehow anatomy had been my favourite subject at university, although only the macroscopic anatomy, not the microscopic, I hated histology class with all my heart.

Sam wakes up around six thirty, turns his head and looks right into the light of the rising sun shining through the window. He tries to stop himself, tries to fight it back but he can't and sneezes louder than I have ever heard anyone sneeze. And even if that hadn't woken Dean, my uncontrollable laughter at Sam's face would have.  
They both look at me grumpily, Sam because I'm making fun of him and Dean probably because he was woken up before seven. Or eight.  
"Good morning you two!" Dean winces at my loud, deliberately high pitched out cry. He mumbles something incomprehensible and turns away from me, staring at the wall.

After one or two big cups of coffee from the motel's lobby and a donut (or three for Dean, he said if they're free he can take as many as he wants to and he will), the mood is noticeably better and we sit down at the table comparing what we found.  
After I told them about the list I made they tell me they already went to one of the families Olivia had worked with. It turns out that they are in fact on the list. Sam and Dean went to the Petersons after Sam convinced Dean that the woman he had suspected to be a witch and the one who killed Olivia was innocent.  
The family lives off the grid, with no electricity or any ties to the rest of the world except for weekly deliveries of some fruits and vegetables they can't grow themselves. Sam tells me what the deeply religious parents told him the day before. They had two children Olivia was looking after from time to time. The older one, Magda, died a few years back of pneumonia.

"Pneumonia? Seriously?" It's weird, I know that even usually healthy people with no other illnesses can be bed bound for weeks due to pneumonia, but a teenager dying of it?  
Dean answers with some sort of disgust in his voice, "the parents refused treatment. Said, God would fix her. But as we all know, Chuck doesn't give a rat's ass about any of us, so she died."  
I can only shake my head. Medicine can do so much nowadays and people refuse treatment, as if their illness is something they have to suffer through. One of the nuns at the home I lived in used to be a nurse. She once told me how much she disliked that belief. She was convinced that God had given doctors and nurses and scientists the tools and intelligence to help people with their diseases and wouldn't want that to be wasted.

Sam is convinced that Magda's ghost is killing people close to her family, maybe people who could have helped her but never did. So they decide to go back to the Peterson's farm. Since they've already been there before without me, Dean looks at me and asks reluctantly if I would mind to stay behind.  
"No, that's fine. I'll wait in the car, read something or whatever. You don't need me."

We leave at four pm after a few rounds of poker (which I surprisingly won, even though Dean says it's just because I'm cheating) and drive up to the gates at the Peterson's property. Dean parks on the other side of the road and they both get out. They're wearing knitted sweaters which Dean isn't a fan of but I'm not allowed to make fun of them.  
"Good luck!" I wave them goodbye and they close their car doors at the exact same time.  
They cross the street and I watch them in the rear view mirror. Once I can't see them anymore behind some trees I open my text book again. Maya used to laugh at how much I liked studying. But anatomy, and physiology and biochemistry too, makes sense. It's all so complex but so well coordinated and harmonized, I simply love reading about it. Especially the things that take a little while to understand, because they're almost too complex. Like the physiology of the kidneys. I think I understood most of it, although some regulation mechanisms for blood pressure and permeability of the walls in each of the sections are just hard to remember and put together.

It's been two hours. I'm getting a little bit nervous, but I'm pretty sure that me showing up will just disrupt the investigation so I keep reading even though it keeps getting harder to concentrate.  
Suddenly the silence I've been sitting in for hours is broken by the sound of a motorcycle coming down the road. I turn in my seat to look at it simply because I can't concentrate on my studies anyway and what else is thereto do.  
When the bike begins to slow down and scoot down in between the back seat and the driver's seat so the biker can't see me but I can still keep an eye on him. He stops in the middle of the road looking at the gate. Somehow his posture seems familiar, tall and broad shouldered. And then he takes off his helmet.

My blood runs cold, freezes in my veins, I feel like it stopped moving at all.  
No.  
No, he can't be here, he can't.  
Is he... Is he looking for me?  
I can barely breathe. I feel tears rolling down my face. My nails are digging into my palms. Or no, only my left hand is curled into a fist, my right is holding on tightly to the knife I keep in my boot.  
My mouth fills with a salty taste, I must have bitten into one of my cheeks.  
He turns around, looking at the car. I don't think he saw me, or did he?  
And then he puts his helmet back on and drives off.  
I'm shaking. My entire body is shaking. My breaths are shallow and fast and I'm pretty sure I'm about to hyperventilate and loose consciousness.  
He can't be here.  
Ketch can't be here.


End file.
